


Peach

by hanschen



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Food Service, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 09:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanschen/pseuds/hanschen
Summary: Tan France's Indian restaurant is a fixture in downtown New York City until it's threatened by a new trendy diner across the street and its hotshot owner (also by Tan's controlling tendencies). When tragedy strikes that diner, they must join forces to keep making food-- the only thing they can connect over.[AU fic in which Tan and Antoni are rivals with romantic tension, Karamo is a loyal patron who interferes, Jonathan is a sassy head waiter, and Bobby is a famous food critic. Many other fandoms sprinkled throughout.]
Relationships: Tan France/Antoni Porowski
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	1. Prep work

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I don't want to hear whatever about this not being how the fine dining industry works. This will be about as close to that reality as Younger is to the actual publishing world. If you are here to comment that, please leave me be.  
> Also it's my SOLAR RETURN TODAY so in general. no mean. also be nice to me because I deserve it.
> 
> The title (and vibe of this fic) is much taken from Peach by the Front Bottoms. 
> 
> If you're coming here from Celestial Events I promise it's not........ like that  
> no clubbings here  
> (just other stuff) 
> 
> P.S. if you pick up on what the other fandoms/people utilized are then your prize is a one card tarot reading that will be so accurate because it's through AO3 commentary

_I bet you will find someone who will love you like you deserve_  
_But tonight I'm the only one left and_  
_I'm bettin' it's a fact that you will never learn_  
_Once I sink my teeth_  
_Your skin's not so tough_

* * *

"I wash my hands when I get home. I count the containers in the fridge and wonder how long the food could last. I keep one eye on the news and wait for information and trust that I’ll figure it out as I go. And maybe that’s what preparing looks like, too."

\- Amanda Shapiro, Healthyish

* * *

Tan France would like you to know that as the owner, manager, menu planner, face, and de facto stylist of Safdi's, he is most likely the best-dressed restaurant manager in the West Village.

Most of them, in their Asian or Tex-Mex fusion fad places or gastronomy pop-ups, fancied themselves too hip to dress up for the early bird dinner rush, or thought an ill-fitting suit would suffice.

Now, it’s best not to look too hard into why this was. Could it be because the others were too busy to think too hard about their outfits? Or because they could afford things like five-hundred dollar designer t-shirts? Or because they actually HAD a dinner rush, and not time to preen in the mirror?

Tan would like to think it was because he was smart enough to think of such a loose yet stylish dress code for his employees.

And yet all they did was complain.

“Taaaaaaan,” Jonathan Van Ness pulled his hair out of his tight bun to shake it out in front of the overworked AC unit in the front of the restaurant. “Please let me turn it up PLEASE it’s fucking AUGUST please I’ll love you forever.”

“You already love me,” Tan was pulled out of his reverie, fantasizing about what he would say about his fantastic wardrobe decisions when the next wave of food journalists realized that not only could he run a restaurant as well as his father did, but also dress better. He fixed his collar even though he knew it was already exactly where he wanted it. “If you’re so hot, dear, could it be because you’re standing in front of the window, in direct sunlight?”

Jonathan squinted at the rays. It was nearly six PM, but the light still beat down on him. “No, that’s not it. Besides, I need to tan my chest a little more.” He started unbuttoning his shirt, a pink-striped button-down from the H&M women’s section.

Tan looked away from Jonathan and back at his current duty, sitting at the corner table up against the bar, slipping freshly printed menus into their plastic covers. “When someone comes in, you’ll have to button that back up, and put your hair back up, please.” But to be honest, he sometimes wondered if it would do him more good to let Jonathan run around looking however he pleased. Maybe it would attract more customers. After all, Jonathan was so beautiful he often had to look away, lest he catch himself ogling the most loyal employee he had, the only one to stay since he was hired four years ago by Tan’s father.

“You mean _if_ someone comes in,” said Papi, the other waiter on duty. He accompanied Tan swapping out menus, moving at about half the speed. Most things he did, he did with a languid softness, his strong Israeli accent seeming to drip from his slow words. But Tan never admonished him, because as soon as customers came in, he snapped upright and became a real people-pleaser. Besides, Tan knew Papi was also in school and working a second job, and he was familiar with that immigrant’s hustle. He could excuse a little fatigue.

But not attitude. “What’s that over there, dear?” Tan wandered over to him. He stood in front of Papi, who obviously wanted to roll his eyes, but knew better. “That above the doorway?”

“I know what it—never mind. I’m sorry.”

“It’s a Michelin star. Mind your manners.” Tan said. “Someone always comes in.”

“Someone besides Karamo and the blue-hairs. Speaking of Karamo, did I tell you he’s officially my friend now?” Jonathan skipped over to Tan. “The other night we saw each other in Cowgirl’s and we watched a concert together and got drinks and talked for like three hours.”

“Jonathan, if you get into some sort of drama with Karamo and drive him away, it will be the last straw.”

“Bite your tongue,” Jonathan sat at their table with a lemon water he grabbed from the bar. “Then I’ll have no excuse not to go back to beauty school.”

“You don’t have an excuse now.”

“I can’t afford it since I started paying my own rent again.”

“I knew I was right about that entire situation.”

“I didn’t ask for your advice. Sugar daddies are so nineties anyway.” He sidled up to Tan to rest an arm on his shoulder. Jonathan was also the only employee Tan didn’t have a strict “no touching” boundary with—another waitstaff member, Hasan, once reached up to touch Tan’s hair and got his fingernail half ripped off. Not wanting to miss tips, he wrapped his hand up in a bar rag and kept working that night. “In all seriousness, I love Karamo but I’m not sure he’s my type. He’s a little too… old? He is handsome as fuck, though.”

“I think your type may just be anyone who’s not fawning over you twenty-four-seven.”

“Okay, RUDE,” Jonathan spun away when the doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil! It’s my new best friend!”

“It’s my favorite waiter at my favorite restaurant with my favorite food!” In a fluid motion that he was so used to it was almost choreographed, Karamo swept in, side-hugged Jonathan, sat at the table in the corner closest to the bar, crossed his legs, and took off his hat. Karamo was a nouveau socialite, known for his talk show talking to random New Yorkers in all sorts of locations. If he couldn’t think of a clever new place, he took them to Safdi's instead, which helped ensure its popularity with a wide demographic up to about a year ago. As nights wound down, Karamo and Tan liked to share Heinekens at Karamo’s favorite table. They used to talk about exciting things like sexual conquests, the latest celebrity to walk into Safdi's, the latest hot influencer get-together Karamo was invited to. Nowadays, they talked about their fluctuating IRAs, the way that suddenly all the people who wanted Karamo’s autograph were his age or older, and who was to blame for all of Tan’s regulars suddenly becoming elderly as well. And they had ample time for all of this—the night crowd seemed to leave earlier and earlier.

Jonathan came up to Karamo’s table with a notepad and pen. “Shock me this time.”

“Just my usual, friend. Hot naan, coke, and side of paneer, no sauce.”

Jonathan was writing, but it was just doodles of loop-de-loops and swiggles. “Right. So bread and cheese. And coke. You sure you don’t feel like mixing it up at all while we’re still in Leo season and feeling fierce? No extra-mild chicken tikka?”

“You know what? Mixing it up sounds like a great idea, Jonathan. How about making that garlic naan instead?”

“Thank you for making it a little easier for me to deliver this order.”

Karamo reached up and gently pulled on one of Jonathan’s locks. “Anything for you.”

Jonathan fanned his face and avoided eye contact with Tan as he walked up to the counter. “Bad news, Brad.”

“Oh goddammit, don’t tell me Karamo got the same damn thing again.”

“He got garlic naan this time.”

“Don’t garlic naan me, buddy. You gotta talk to this guy. One day I’m gonna tuck something into his food. Like spiking a drink. Except it’ll be surprise mint chutney in something. Or like a tamarind molasses into his coke.” Brad was the straightest, whitest person Tan had ever associated himself with, but he cooked Indian food like an old pro. He was built much more like a linebacker than a chef, but even someone like him was unable to yell at Jonathan for an extended period of time. “Or like a… jeez, I don’t know. Anyway, here you go.” He shoved a steaming hot plate of food toward Jonathan. “I’m not getting the coke, though. Not my job. Unless you want me to bartend tonight, chief.” This was directed at Tan, who came over to take a look at the naan. “Then sure, whatever, I’ll get whoever wants a coke a coke. Ya know?”

“That’s Hasan tonight.”

“I don’t see a Hasan anywhere.”

“What time is it?” Tan looked down at wrist, but a watch didn’t go with this outfit. “Dammit. Not again. Is Priya in tonight?”

“Beats the tar outta me.”

“She’ll have to do it.”

“If you ask her to do anything outside of the kitchen or office again, she’ll probably quit.”

“What about you, then? Take the bar and she’ll run the line?”

He didn’t even look at Tan, just adjusted his backwards baseball cap. “What’s the maximum amount of times someone can be late before they’re fired?”

“I can’t fire anyone else,” Tan said. He didn’t need to catch Brad’s raised eyebrow or Jonathan’s huff and hair flip to know anyone else could finish the sentence. _Because there isn’t anyone else left to be fired._ Most of his staff had left quickly after his father passed, not wanting to be part of a new wave, or having already caught enough of Tan’s attitude that they knew how it was going to go from then on out. Only Jonathan had stayed.

Around the time of his father’s death, Jonathan also said repeatedly to Tan that he was there for emotional support, but Tan always just patted his hand and told him to get back to work. Tan hadn’t any time to grieve when it happened, as he had to focus on hiring new staff, while simultaneously figuring out how to run a restaurant. Since that era, three years ago, he had gone through at least forty staff members (so was said to press, when in reality, it surpassed fifty).

The only ones that held on were Priya, a top-notch kitchen and inventory manager as well as Tan’s second set of eyes for all things directly related to Indian cuisine; Brad, who came recommended by Priya, just after Tan’s dad had been passed, which he cited in the interview as motivation to come there, since the news of the death would disguise his arrival and help him keep “off the grid” (which he was mysterious about for the rest of the interview); Papi, who Tan had a feeling was sad and stressed most of the time, but stayed for the good of that green card; Jonathan, whose loyalty was suspiciously undying; and Hasan, a stand-up comedian who was always late.

“Oh my god, come look. You need to see this right now.” Jonathan interrupted Tan’s thoughts by grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the window.

Tan slipped his arm away and readjusted his sleeve. “You absolutely need to calm down. Nothing is this urgent outside of these four walls.”

“No, just look. Just look.” Jonathan stopped short of the window. With one hand he pulled back the wooden blinds, and with the other, he fixed a lock of Tan’s pristine hair that he had knocked out of place.

“What am I looking at?”

“Don’t you see him?”

“Who? It’s the Village in the early evening. There’s plenty of people out and about.”

“No, the really unbelievably hot guy with the floppy hair.”

Tan squinted. He didn’t see anyone. He realized after a moment that his eyes were looking for Rob, even though he wouldn’t describe Rob’s hair as floppy so much as wavy and luxurious. Maybe he was also looking for Rob so he could give the man a piece of his mind, after taking him out on three amazing dates and not calling for a week.

“Do you see him?”

“No.”

Karamo appeared behind them. “Oh, I see him.”

“What are you two seeing that I’m not?”

“That hot white boy in the black tee.”

“Again, the Village, there’s a million hot white boys in t-shirts.”

“He’s in front of the restaurant directly across the way.”

“Oh god, and he’s moving _boxes,_ ” Jonathan lifted his hair and started fanning the back of his neck. “What do you think is in them? Squash? Oh god.”

“He’s not really my type,” Karamo said, walking back to his table. “Even so, I wouldn’t mind moving boxes with him.”

Tan shut the blinds. “Sleeping with the enemy, Jonathan?”

“I’m what now?”

“That man is clearly working for The Gathering. Which happens to be the cause for the twenty percent decrease in weeknight traffic I’m experiencing.” Tan pasted a smile back on his face to hold the door open for a middle-aged couple in linen pantsuits walking in. Another couple, he noted—not one full family or group had come in yet that night. Just a small handful of couples, most of them qualifying for AARP membership.

“How can you know that? Didn’t it just open a week ago?”

“Yes, and that decrease started exactly a week ago.”

“If I sleep with him, will you fire me?”

“Maybe you should,” he said as he handed Jonathan two menus. “Be a spy. Get us some information. Now please show these people to their seats.”

Jonathan skipped over to his new customers and his loud “Hellooooooo gorgeous newcomers!” bounced off the walls. Tan could practically hear Jonathan’s tip getting higher and higher, the slap of dollar bills on one of the pristine white tablecloths Tan took to the laundry himself for a bleaching each week.

Yet another handsome couple of sixty-five-ish walked in. Tan looked over at the empty host stand. Where was the hostess?

Oh right. Two nights ago, she had come in with a wrinkled shirt for the third time in a row, and when Tan commented on it, she just stared at him with those huge, wet, confused eyes under her uneven bangs. And he had said just that—“Don’t keep staring at me with those huge, wet, confused eyes under those uneven bangs.” She started crying, and he told her to leave and come back when she had gotten herself together.

Guess she hadn’t gotten herself together.

He spent the next half hour or at the host stand, greeting all who came in, counting the minutes Hasan was late. His stomach growled. Had he eaten a shift meal before dinner rush? No, of course not. No time. _Fuck you, Hasan. Fuck you, stupid hostess whose name I can’t remember. Fuck you, hot guy working at The Gathering._ All these things distracting his employees, slowing them and the whole place down. Didn’t anyone care about getting things done anymore? That guy at The Gathering seemed to care about two things only—the Clark Kent swoop in his hair, and skinny jeans. Sure, he looked good in them, but so did Tan. Why weren’t people commenting on how good he looked in his jeans? Well, Rob did, a couple times (only it in social media pictures, as Tan would never wear JEANS on a date with a guy he actually liked).

Hasan burst in, already in his uniform. He interrupted Tan’s latest Rob reverie, adding fuel to the fire behind his glowering stare. “I know. You can say it—‘Fuck you, Hasan.’ I know you were thinking it. I could hear it from down the block.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it inappropriate for me to think of a swear word, heaven forbid, when you’re over a half hour late in dinner rush?”

“I told them a million times I had a hard out at five-thirty. I couldn’t miss this audition though, if you only knew--” Hasan patted the podium, flashing a toothy smile at Tan. “Don’t worry, I got this station now. Or do you want me at the bar still?”

“I’ll get Priya to do that. Or I’ll do that. You stay right here. And make no tips like you deserve.”

“How fired am I after tonight?”

“Quite,” Hasan nodded when he heard that, wiping the smile off his face, but his dark eyes still sparkled. He probably knew as well as Tan that it would be impossible to replace Hasan, as he was scheduled for every night the entire rest of the week, filling in the two nights that the Whatsername hostess was supposed to have. Tan decided he would brainstorm ways to fire Hasan anyway.

He made his way across the restaurant, smiling at each table, checking their plates, refilling water glasses, swallowing hard as he noticed that the normally full front section was only about two-thirds full.

“You look worried, my friend,” Karamo said over his laptop. Tan kind of hated when he did that (this wasn’t a café), but he liked Karamo enough to let it go. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“The usual.”

“Need to let someone go yet again?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I can.”

“That’s the spirit,” Karamo looked at him over his computer. “Did you finally realize the virtue of a second chance?”

“No, I think I just need to hire someone new who can jump in for him right away. Then I’ll fire him.”

Before Karamo could object, Tan walked away. He tapped Jonathan’s shoulder, “Your corner table boyfriend needs a Coke refill.” He passed by Papi and poked him in the back until his posture straightened. He went into the kitchen and put a plate in front of Brad. Without needing to be spoken to, Brad threw on a scoop of rice and whatever sauce was closest. Tan took the plate into the office and shut the door behind him.

“Priya, I need another help wanted post.”

“That’s the third this month.”

“Impossible. It’s only August fourteenth.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m telling you.”

He spoke with his mouth full and didn’t bother to sit down. “Make sure it’s the template that says we’re looking for experienced people only. I’m looking for a very fast turnaround, minimal training.”

Priya finally looked at him over her shoulder. “Who are you about to fire?”

“Hasan.”

“Tan, no, please,” She rubbed her forehead and turned back to the computer. Even as her tone grew more exasperated in their conversation, her facial expression stayed stonelike—eyes forward, eyebrows ever so slightly knitted together, red lipstick showing no sign of frown nor smile. “Hasan knows every position. He’s even picked up kitchen work before. And he’s on every night this week.”

“There’s got to be some other jack-of-all-trades out there. This is New York City.” He came over to the computer to peer over her shoulder at one of the three sites they posted on looking for employees. Priya wasn't on the listings page, though. She was on an article about The Gathering.

“What is this?”

“Just seeing what that guy across the street is up to. He’s getting reviewed by Bobby Berk next week.”

“He… what?” Tan stopped eating, suddenly nauseated. “How do you know?”

“I can just tell from the way they keep advertising it. They always over-advertise the people who are about to get reviews.” Priya kept her eyes glued to the screen they way she always did when she didn’t want to deliver bad news to Tan’s face.

“What the fuck? I’ve been trying to get Bobby to come here for years. Even my father thought it would have been good. Even getting a bad review from him boosts business.”

She sighed. “Want to proof our new job post before it gets too many hits? I posted it pre-emptively earlier today. I was experimenting with different fonts to try to make it look new and different, and just went ahead and hit 'post.' I guess I sensed a disturbance in the force.”

“What is that?” He pointed at a little red flag just next to their company name.

“That’s… a marking for abuse.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we’ve been marked for abuse, obviously.”

“Watch your tone, please,” He tossed his empty plate aside on her desk. She responded by picking it up and reaching over to put it on the arm of the couch instead without looking away from the computer. “What does that mean? Someone reported us as abusive? Who was it?”

“It’s an anonymous reporting system.”

“Someone will still apply, right? Aren’t people desperate for a job?”

She shrugged. “I would put feelers out and ask around if this has affected anyone else, but… I don’t know anyone else who’s been flagged.”

He sat on the couch, staring at his plate, as if that would have the answers. He pointed at the plate, though she still wasn’t looking at him. “This saag paneer was fantastic tonight. Did you try it?”

“Yeah, it was. You should tell Brad if you think so. He’s working his ass off out there and you don’t really give him a lot of compliments. He loves compliments.”

Tan got up and took a peek out into the kitchen. Brad was working alone. Instead of saying anything, Tan ducked back inside. “Doesn’t he usually have an assistant?”

“Yeah. You fired him two weeks ago for overcooking the biryani.”

“He did that twice though, didn’t he?”

Priya turned to face him. “We can’t fire Hasan. If we get anything close to our usual weekend crowd tomorrow, Brad’s going to need help in the kitchen.”

“Can’t we just step in?”

“Tan, I already came in early to get prep done. I can’t keep doing that. I have a wedding to plan.”

He didn’t know that. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“I need you to work the bar.”


	2. Salt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I start two new fics in a week? Yes.  
> Will this momentum be impossible to replicate post-quarantine? Yes.  
> Am I having fun? Y e s
> 
> If you can name the other fandoms/people utilized, your prize will be  
> something  
> I'll think of something

_"Salt enhances flavor, and it has a greater impact on flavor than any other ingredient. Learn to use it well, and your food will taste good. Though salt also affects texture and helps modify other flavors, nearly every decision you’ll make about salt will involve amplifying and deepening flavor. Add it in the right amount, at the right time, in the right form, and your food will be delicious."_

\- Samin Nosrat, “Salt Fat Acid Heat”

* * *

Chapter 2

“Damn you damn you damn you,” Tan smacked the side of the computer when it froze again. He could hear their only customer, a small old woman with an immaculate bob and huge sunglasses, complain to her husband about what was taking so long when they were the only people there. It wasn’t enough stress that he couldn’t get the machine to work, but he also couldn’t help but look at the time—1:30pm and he only had one guest?

Tan was about to scribble out the check by hand, rummaging around in a drawer for a paper receipt book, when Papi ran up to him, with his backpack still on.

“You’re late, and nothing’s working. Take that off and get to work, now, please.”

“I need a favor.”

“You come in late and the first thing you do is ask me for a favor? Are you mad, boy?”

Papi’s eyes fell to the floor, but he kept speaking. “My friend who was visiting needs to stay with me longer than I thought. He can’t get overseas like he planned. It’s—there’s—problems—” He searched desperately for the word, grabbing at his mop of hair like he would find it in there. “He cannot go back home to Egypt and there’s… a lot… of why.” Papi looked over at the entrance.

Tan followed his eyes. A tall man, tan, with lovely hazel eyes and a smile brighter than the August sun, waved at Tan like they were old friends.

Tan gasped, and not just because he was pretty. “No. No one can stay here overnight. Absolutely not. That’s SO illegal. People will think I’m running some sort of, I don’t know, sweatshop or a brothel or—”

“No no! He doesn’t need to stay here!”

“I don’t have any room at my place, dear. Why can’t he stay with you?”

“Of course he is staying with me!” Papi blushed, which seemed like a strange reaction to Tan. “He needs a job.”

“A job? I presume he has boatloads of food service experience if you’re bringing him to me unplanned like this.” He didn’t need to look at the boy’s face, just catch his posture stiffening out of the corner of his eye to know it wasn’t the case.

“Tan. Please. You don’t understand—well—maybe you do. He can’t go back. It’s… not safe.”

The machine finally spat out the receipt for the old woman. Tan thanked his gods above, because it could buy him some time figuring out how the hell he was supposed to say no to that. “Take this to that woman. Be polite. Use your accent, make it cute. Tell your friend to have a seat in the back. I’ll talk to him in a moment.” Papi grabbed the receipt and ran off, Tan pulling off his backpack just as he darted off.

Tan went to put the backpack in the staff room. He paused in front of Brad, “Would you or Priya have any possible use for an intern?”

Brad looked up from the pakora in the deep-fryer. “An intern? A _sooz-chef_? For me? Aw wow! Lookit him! Mr. Moneybags over here throwin’ me an assistant, next thing you know I’ll be able to do DROP-OFF LAUNDRY! Yeah, why not?! Hell, I’ll take an intern.”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah, someone can chop some shit in the morning, I guess, if he’s fast.” Tan started to respond that that wasn’t the case, but Brad was already saying, “Gives me some time to make Sunday brunch for the kids. Haven’t done that in ages.”

“You’ll get help when you learn to not interrupt me.” Tan went back into the staff room to finish putting the backpack away before he could see the reaction to that comment, recognizing the redirection of his frustration was bad, even for him. He also hadn’t any clue until then that Brad had children. _If_ _I’m that bad, then there’s no reason not to send this poor boy packing. Do I know any immigration lawyers? Does Rob? Would he answer that text? Would… what is that smell? Is that weed?_

He sniffed around the staff room. He went straight to Jonathan’s shelf, but it the weed smell from there was faint and stale. Tan opened the door again to peek into the kitchen, where it only smelled like oil and curry powder. Brad nodded at him. “Hey Tan, do you smell pot or have I lost my goddamn mind finally?”

Tan shut the door again and went straight for the backpack. He opened it up, dug past a couple notebooks and a half-eaten Halvah, and saw a massive gallon-sized Ziploc of weed. It was accompanied with a series of empty, much smaller ziplocs. _Oh, child. What are you doing?_

He bopped his head a couple times, clutching his temples in frustration. Then he marched into his office, straight to his mirror. He fixed his hair, checking to see not a single strand was out of place (as if it ever was), and grabbed the first folder of papers he saw, something to look like the professional hiring type.

Priya looked over her shoulder. “Please say you’re hiring someone.”

“No, just interviewing.”

“Oh… but—”

“I won’t be hiring him.”

Just as she started to moan, “Oh my gOD Tan—” He left the room and went to the back of his restaurant (ignoring “Oh hey lookin’ PROFESH, bud!” on his way through the kitchen). He could feel Papi staring from all the way from the front, desperate, alone in the otherwise empty area.

Tan sat down across from the man. “I’m Tan.”

His handshake was firm, warm. “Haled.”

Tan felt a rush of warmth hearing that accent on the ‘H’. If he had plans to let this boy stay, they would probably have much in common. Maybe the warmth was also because he really was very handsome. It was sort of hard to look directly at him, but Tan forced himself to—boss man and all that. “I assume you don’t have a resume’ with you because you’re traveling?”

Haled’s smile faded just a bit as he leaned in to listen. He thought about what Tan said, then looked up in thought, as if he could find an answer on the ceiling. And he might have—“Oh! A resume… that’s… it has all my jobs?”

“Yes… do you speak English, dear?”

“Yes. Not so good. But yes.”

“Have you worked in restaurants? Food service?”

“Restaurants, no… just in music.”

“Music. And that’s all?” _Fuck. How is this guy going to get a job anywhere in this city?_ “Haled, dear. We are really not hiring someone with your… level of experience. I can barely get a full staff of waiters with training. Certainly, no one will have time to train you.”

It took Haled a second to catch up with what he was saying. His smile was gone now, but his eyes were bright, and he searched the ceiling again, this time coming up with, “I could… wash dishes.”

“I have someone doing that,” He didn’t, but it made no financial sense to hire a dishwasher when he could just stick things in the machine, or hand-wash the few special items himself, or bribe Hasan an extra ten dollars to do it. _When is the last time I washed dishes?_ He couldn’t remember doing that for a couple weeks at least, but he can visualize walking in and passing by fresh sets of white plates. Papi, Priya, or Brad must have been doing it. Probably out of pity. He remembered his first night out with Rob, when they ended the night at his own restaurant, eating leftovers and washing their own dishes. How cute their hands looked, side by side in soapy water. He missed it so much, he ached.

“You are alright?” Haled leaned forward to match Tan, who hadn’t realized he had bent in half in his chair.

“Aches and pains. Comes with getting older. You’ll know soon. How are old you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Oh,” Tan ached even harder. He would have pegged him for older, twenty-seven or eight, and this made it worse somehow. “Haled, there’s simply nothing I can do for you here.”

He looked desperate, but didn’t go frenetic. He looked over quickly over Tan’s shoulder, he assumed at Papi, then back to Tan. “Sir. Please. I will do anything. I am learning better English. I can wash dishes, wash floors… do you need anything in your home instead?” He hesitated, then reached for Tan’s wrist. “Anything?”

Tan forced himself to unbend. The pain in his midsection had turned from an ache into something sharp. “You misunderstood. I have nothing for you _here._ I will find something for you from one of my connections. There are many restaurants in this area.”

After that very brief delay in grasping the words, Haled smiled again, showing every beautiful white tooth he had. “I would love to be like you one day, with so many friends in the business.”

Tan laughed, wishing that were true.

* * *

“How are we doing here, folks?” Antoni Porowski heard his own voice crack as he approached the table of Ugg-wearing young women, and wanted to shrivel up into a husk the perfect size for mixing into the herbal vinaigrette for the summer salads. Maybe with his own embarrassed flesh, it would finally have the zing he was looking for.

The women cooed something unintelligible but positive over full mouths. Once again he had messed up the timing. He muttered something to the effect of “Good, good, great…” and walked away. _That was even more embarrassing than the fleece-vest bros. Why can’t I interact with guests like a normal person? Why can’t I figure out the timing? And why are all these people STRAIGHT?_ Hadn’t they gotten the clue from the rosey pink walls, polished wood floors, and mimosa brunch special that The Gathering was as gay as he was?

Just when he had that lost thought, wondering if he was the last gay man left in New York City, the doorbell tinged, and in walked a living work of art. A slight man, no taller than five-eight, but walking with the posture of someone over six feet and loving it. His hair was another three inches, a beautiful silver. Antoni darted over, desperate to run his hands through it, but he just said, “Table, sir? I mean, table… how many? At your table?” He could feel his cheeks burning and couldn’t believe that he spoke three languages, but apparently not English.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking, but I believe the answer is one.” On top of that hair, he had a beautiful British accent. Antoni shook out his feet to make sure he could still feel them.

“Right, I’ll seat you. Right away. Follow me.” He led the man to his best table, the one in the corner with both sides of the walls made of windows. There was so much natural light, it was every instagrammer’s dream.

The guest squinted and held up his loose black blazer over his face. “I hate to be a pest, but do you have a table that’s a little less bright?”

“Yes, you can choose from… any other open table you see.”

“There’s not many. Never mind. This will do.” He sat down and crossed his legs, then produced a pair of Gucci sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. He kicked his foot back and forth a few times, and glanced out the window. He seemed to be staring intently, trying to see into the Indian restaurant across the street that Antoni had never been in (he knew nothing about that cuisine, so why bother?)

After a moment, he turned back to Antoni. “Could I see a menu, perhaps?”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry.” Antoni handed him a menu and thanked the heavens above he was past his serving days. He wouldn’t receive shit for tips if so. “Would you like some water?”

“Just a bit, with no ice. And no need to rush over it and refill it constantly. Not sure what it is about the Americans and chugging water with each meal.”

Antoni had to resist the urge to jump up and down. “THANK YOU! That’s what I’ve been saying! And no one ever knows what I’m talking about!”

“Lord, I find that hard to believe. They’re also peeing nonstop.”

“Exactly!!”

“You’re not American, then, dear?”

“I’m from Montreal.”

“Ah,” he said in an indiscernible tone, then turned to look at his menu. “Tell me, what is a jammy egg?”

“They’re eggs that are boiled just so the yolk is set, no longer liquid, but still soft enough to spread. It’s great on our twelve-grain bread.”

“So, soft-boiled eggs?”

“…Yes.”

“For ten dollars. Wow. I think I need a couple more minutes. Could I please have a latte in the mean time?”

“Of course. What kind of milk would you like?”

This threw him for a momentary loop, the first time Antoni saw him think hard about it. “Whatever kind is most convenient. Not soy milk. Very chalky. Two percent?”

“Right away.”

“Darling, I’m sorry. Come back for a moment.”

He did, and would probably do anything this man asked of him.

“To be totally transparent, I’m hoping to talk to the man running this establishment for just a few minutes. I’m sure he or she must be very busy, but hopefully he would speak to me as a neighbor and colleague. You see, I run Safdi’s across the street, and I have a bit of a predicament. I’m hoping your owner might have some words of advice.”

“Of course. I’ll be right back. With your latte. And the owner.” In a daze, he walked over to Lola, running the espresso machine.

She expertly poured a couple of ristretto shots, and then flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder to await orders from Antoni. She was one of his best employees, to the point that her skill level (and the two inches of height on him) never failed to intimidate him.

“Can I get your best latte in the world, with two percent?”

“Two percent? As in cow’s milk? Like something not for an influencer supervegan?” She had to dig around in the fridge for a second to find it. “Did regular milk become so unusual that it’s back to being hip again?”

“Can you do me a big favor once you’re done?”

“Besides being here?”

“Will you take it to that guy at the corner table?”

“The really pretty guy with the really pretty hair?” She was able to make heart-shaped latte art without even looking, peering at the guest from across the room as he fanned himself with the menu.

“Please?”

“Of course, but in my opinion—and I know you’re not asking for dating advice necessarily, but…” She sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top, cracking the perfect heart. “If you have a crush on someone, don’t avoid it. It only makes it worse, especially when you’re on the rebound. Like you.”

“I don't know if I needed that clarification.”

“But you know what I mean? Best to rip off that band-aid.”

“I don’t have a crush on him. I just… need to ask Claire something.”

“Of course,” Lola grinned as she walked toward the corner table.

Antoni burst into the kitchen. It was absolutely pristine, perfectly organized. Everything was the way Claire, his head chef, liked it. And the kitchen manager she insisted on bringing with her, Gaby, labeled every ingredient, every empty jar, every quart container lid. Truth be told, it was a little unsettling for Antoni, but the results spoke for themselves, so he willed himself not to micromanage, especially when the only problem he had was that it was too well-managed.

His entrance was a little dramatic, and when he stopped just short of Claire’s kitchen island, she dropped an egg on the floor. “Ugh, oh no, Antoni. Don’t fly in like that. I’m easily spooked, you know this.” She indeed seemed spooked, but giggled to drop to the floor and clean up her mess. She was lovable times ten, and that’s why he hired her (good thing she turned out to be a killer cook).

“I may have a situation and I need to know what you would do.”

“What _I_ would do? I’m not in charge.”

He ignored this, since he would never use the phrase “in charge” to describe himself. Really, as the owner, he was just oiling a bunch of moving parts, and he liked it that way. “Let’s say there’s this very scary, very gorgeous guy who just came in, and he owns a Michelin star restaurant across the street that I’ve been too rude to go into yet, and he asked to speak to the owner, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just said ‘sure, I’ll go get him?’”

She took this in, and giggled again. “Where’s Ben when you need him?”

“Representing us at some sustainable food service conference because I begged him to go instead of me and now I regret that very much.”

“I could probably try to answer if I knew what he wanted.” She started dropping eggs into the pot of boiling water she had going. Antoni knew it was for jammy eggs, and suddenly, he was dying to throw every egg out of her pale hands and onto the floor. “Like, does he want to collaborate on something?”

“Like… on what? He runs an Indian place.”

“Or does he want to complain about something?”

“What could he complain about?”

“Maybe you’re stealing his business.”

“Oh… _merde._ That’s probably it. It’s not my fault we’re so full! Beginner’s luck!”

“Look at you, complaining about good business,” she said as she seamlessly moved to throwing flour on a roll of buckwheat biscuit dough. “Maybe he just wants to flirt with you, Antoni.”

“That’s the scariest option yet.” He cracked open the door and peered at the man’s table. He was grinning from ear to ear, mid-conversation with Lola. She said something to make him laugh so hard he tilted his back to cackle. Even his laugh had an interesting cadence, one Antoni could hear from all the way in the kitchen. He knew then that this negotiation, whatever it was, was bound to fail-- he would give this guy anything to hear that laugh up close. _  
_

“You can’t just be sad over Joey forever, Ant.” Claire punctuated her words as she pushed her flour-covered hands into the dough, kneading it to hell and back.

“Challenge accepted.”

“Just go out there and be your charming self and say you had a brain fart. You’re a wunderkind who forgot he was the owner for a second. You're just that busy. No big deal.”

“’Wunderkind’ is pushing it. I’m thirty-six.”

“Well, I’m certainly not the owner. So that's all the advice I've got.”

He sighed, knowing she was right, as per usual. He walked back out into the coffee station, where Lola had returned to. She leaned on the hefty, rubber-lined lever of the machine to deliver her line, as if out a black-and-white French drama. “He is beautiful. Not my type, but very charming.”

“Can I have a shot, please?”

She handed him a steaming shot of espresso. “Liquid courage.”

He summoned the power of every Polish ancestor he could think of, and walked over. This guest looked up at him from the table, every expectation from his own ancestor rising to meet Antoni’s, in a single raised eyebrow. Still, Antoni swallowed stomach acid, and willed himself not to be intimidated. “Hi, I’m going to start over. I’m Antoni Porowski. I own this place.”

“Oh! Interesting. A moment ago, you were a server. And not a great one, if I’m being honest.”

“I know. My brain. Stopped. For a second. I just needed some caffeine.” He sat down and lifted his shot glass, to toast. “And now I have it!”

“I’m Tan France. I own Safdi’s. Across the street.” Tan ignored his offer to toast and sipped his latte, oblivious to Antoni’s blushing. “Please tell Lola that this is wonderful.”

“I will make sure to do just that. How can I help you today, Tan?” It sounded lovely rolling off his tongue. Tan. Tan France. He wanted to say it again. And again.

“I’ve come across a lovely young man in dire need of work, but I don’t have anywhere that makes sense for him on my team. I was hoping maybe you could find a place for him.”

 _Interesting._ Antoni felt his eyebrows knit. This was unexpected, a bizarre sort of reverse-poaching? He wanted badly to impress Tan, but remembered Claire mentioned something about him causing Tan to lose business. “That’s… kind. What’s his specialty?”

“Nothing.”

Antoni cleared his throat. The taste of the espresso sat heavily in the back of his throat. “Nothing? At all? He’s not a cook in any way?”

“No.”

“What experience does he have serving?”

“None.”

“I wonder if maybe… he could be a busboy? Does he know to do that? Has he done anything like it?”

“He’s a musician.”

Antoni cleared his throat again. “So just to be clear, you’re looking to dump a young man with zero food service experience on me?”

“’Dump’ is a strong word. He’s a very lovely, polite man.”

“This is kind of absurd, but I suppose I could meet him. Can you direct him toward me for an interview?” Antoni reached into his jean jacket and pulled out his gold business card holder. It gleamed in the Saturday morning sun. Something about this gave him renewed confidence. This whole situation was bizarre, and kind of insulting, but it didn’t diminish his success in any way. “Here’s my card. Have him call me.”

“Antoni, please. Let me text someone and have him come over and have a coffee with us. Right now. If I leave now and just give him your card, we both know how this will go—he’ll call and call and you’ll never pick up.”

“Maybe that’s how YOU would handle it. I have to get back to work in a moment. We’re pretty busy.”

“YES, I can see that, clearly. And how do you presume to think I wouldn’t handle this man with kindness? I’m here pleading his case now, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, and I think it’s super weird you have to plead his case if there’s nothing wrong with him.” Antoni stood, taking his now-cooled half-drunk espresso with him. “But I’ll see for myself, I guess. Later, when he calls me. Not now.”

“Antoni,” Tan got up to meet him, his chair scraping the tile floor. He was at least three inches shorter, but stuck his chin out defiantly. “I’d like to be there for you to meet him. He doesn’t speak great English, and he’s a scared boy in a foreign land. Please take a few more minutes. Give him a chance.”

The table next to them turned to watch them, and Antoni realized he needed to put an end to this quick. “He needs to call me. Like you should have.” He tossed back the rest of his espresso as Tan’s mouth dropped.

“The next time you and your very trendy little café are in need, sir, I hope you remember how you treated others in a similar bind, and strive to do the exact opposite.”

He couldn’t believe both that Tan could be so smooth when pissed, and that someone had just called HIM unkind. He started to respond, but the espresso went down the wrong pipe and he started coughing.

“I would offer you water but you never got it for me because you’re as good at serving as you are at _being nice._ It's all just for show.” And with that, Tan walked out, his blazer over his shoulder. After a couple seconds, he darted back in and threw a couple of dollars on the table—“For Lola, not you!” and left again.


	3. Fire

" _Food always tastes better on live fire. People walk in the door; you hear gasps because they don't expect to see the fire first thing. And then the comment I hear most often is, I felt transported. I walked in the door and I was transported somewhere else_... _I think there's just something really primal about fire in general. This is the original way people cooked. We're trying to represent ancient cultures that go back to the beginning of time. I don't see how we could do a better tribute than to challenge ourselves the way that they were challenged, by using live fire_."

\- "How a Wood-Burning Hearth Powers One of the Country's Best New Restaurants", _Bon Appetit_ magazine

* * *

_Tan stood with two towels on his hands, holding a large pot of rice. Steam escaped out the top, where he had placed an upside down plate. “I’m ready.”_

_“Are you sure?” his father asked, not looking up from his paperwork._

_“Father! I told you! I know how to make this! I’ve watched you and Mum a million times! I’m ready.”_

_“You are never ready,” now he peered over his thick black-rimmed glasses at Tan. It was hard to discern what was under his thick moustache, but when it came to Tan’s cooking, it was never a smile. “I don’t know what to see it’s in that pot to know it’s not tahdig.”_

_“I’ll show you!” He flipped the pot, keeping the plate on, and placed it on the table. With a deep breath, he removed the pot, expecting a beautiful, solid cake of rice with a golden crust on top. Instead, when the pot was gone, smoke poured out. No fire, no rice, just smoke._

_His father laughed, starting to say something,_

But he didn’t hear what it was before he woke up.

That dream was recurring, happening a couple times a year since he was a teenager, and every couple of weeks since his father died. His brain liked to switch up what was under the pot. Sometimes it was fire AND smoke. Sometimes it was soup, just liquid pouring out, or the entirely wrong food, like chickpeas rolling out, or an unidentifiable sludge of trash and rotten food. Once, a couple years ago before a scheduled health inspection, it was a rat, even though they later passed with flying colors, as they always did. At least five different times, it had been just plain white rice, with no crust. This was the most frustrating, and he often woke up blinking away tears from that variation, for a reason he didn’t know (and chose not to investigate).

This edition felt a little too real. He could still smell smoke.

 _No, wait. That's real._ _My apartment smells like smoke._

He threw off the pristine white covers and ran into his kitchen. Nothing was wrong, no alarm was going off, but the smoke smell was strongest in that room. It was then he noticed that it was four A.M. on the stove clock, but he didn’t need to turn on any lights to see—he could see using an eerie orange glow from outside.

His kitchen was above Safdi’s.

Safdi’s must be on fire.

He ran to the bedroom, and shoved on the first pair of shoes he saw from his meticulous shoe rack. He ran to the front door, grabbed his keys, and ran down the stairs two at a time. He nearly slipped, realizing he had put on dress shoes, J.Crew oxblood colored ones. He realized he must look ridiculous wearing them with his brown silk pajamas, but there was no time to change (though he would have liked to). He cursed his system of putting dress shoes on the top and made a mental note to fix it. If he still had a building to fix his shoe rack in by the morning.

The stairs led him into a small foyer in the back closet of Safdi’s, where he never slammed in the passcode to the alarm faster. He launched himself past the shelves of folded spare tablecloths and napkins and white plates and into the kitchen. It was pitch black, except for the dimmest of orange glows from the window on the door leading into the dining room. He threw the lights on.

No sign of fire. No visible smoke. In fact, the smoke smell was lightest in here, overpowered by the smell of the bleach that he paid a cleaning service to come in and use every night. It didn’t even smell like food in there when the day started, and that’s how he preferred it. The fire must be coming from a different building.

Tan still looked around to make sure. He sometimes liked to perform surprise inspections on the kitchen, and now that he was up, might as well take a look around.

Everything was pristine, just the way he had instructed Brad and Priya. Good. Firing a chef when he still needed a host and a bartender would be a real pain. His eyes landed on a small row of jars pushed up against the corner of the rarely used microwave. They were filled with dark liquids of varying shades, mostly browns and reds, some fermentation project of Brad's. He didn't knew what they were and didn't care. _  
_

Before he could think too hard about it, he saw flashing lights through the window on the door. He walked out into the dining room and raised the blinds. Fire trucks had arrived. There was some sort of blaze across the street, lines of people staring from Tan’s side of the street. When it sunk in that Safdi's was definitely not what was on fire, he heaved a sigh of relief. The sigh turned into a burp, and only then did he realize how much his stomach acid had been churning. _Mental notes thus far: reorganize shoe rack, decrease jar clutter in kitchen, buy some Tums._

He walked out the door and walked up to the first person he saw. “What in the world happened there?” The person didn’t respond. He tapped the guy’s shoulder. “Sir? Do you know what’s happened?”

The guy still didn’t respond, just stood and stared. His messy brown hair was falling in his face and he didn’t bother to brush it away. Tan looked closer. It was that guy who owned The Gathering. The one he had words with.

Tan was about to mouth off at him for ignoring him, but then realized there was something very off about his blankness, the fire shining in his big brown eyes. Tan looked over across the street. Within flames, he recognized the sign in its obnoxious, modern, hard-to-read-on-purpose font—it was The Gathering that was engulfed.

Tan stepped away from him. He didn’t like the guy, but wasn’t about to verbally eviscerate him when his restaurant was aflame.

He stepped back until he bumped into something thick and hard. He turned around. It was Brad. “What are you doing here so early?”

He didn’t even have his signature hat on. His hair was absolutely everywhere. “Eh, wanted to catch up on prep. And some projects. One thing or another, whatever, I get here and…” His eyes also seemed uncharacteristically blank, his voice smaller than usual. “Hey, do you know if… there’s no one inside that Gathering place thing, right?”

“I have no idea. I hope not.” He felt as if he was breaking bad news to a child. “I can't imagine so. It’s four A.M.”

“Yeah but some chefs, you know… work too hard…you know how it-- eh ya know… cool pajamas, chief.” He went inside Safdi’s. As soon as he left, Papi walked up to Tan next, Haled in tow.

“What are you doing here so early, love?”

“Love? You don’t call me that. You call Jonathan that.”

“Obviously, there’s a reason for that. I won’t make that mistake again. Why are you here now?”

“We couldn’t sleep anyway and heard there was a fire down here. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t us.”

“What would you do if it was?”

“I don’t know. Go back home, I guess.”

“Where is home again? Washington Heights?”

“No, no. Home. Israel.”

Tan didn’t have much to say to that, so he looked over at Haled. “Good morning. I still have no job for you.”

He smiled that big smile, as if there was not an inferno across the street. “Oh, that is no problem! Today, I will try this number you gave me.” He held up the card Tan had given him—Antoni’s business card for The Gathering.

Tan nodded. “I’ll keep looking.”

* * *

Lunch service that day left little to complain about. All of the lunch regulars showed up, most of the semi-regulars too. Even the bluest of the blue-hairs seemed chattier than usual. Tan couldn’t get a word in edgewise when he bopped around between tables. Jonathan was able to fit in at least one “You better WERK!” into a conversation at every table. Hasan’s riffing left little old Indian ladies (his biggest fan club) tilting their heads back to laugh so often Tan was worried their necks would snap. Plates were cleaned with no complaints. Even Priya made an appearance on the floor.

“If I could find one thing to complain about today…” Tan said to her as they sat at a table rolling napkins for dinner service.

“Nothing. There was nothing. We made bank.”

“I know, but everyone wanted to talk about that damn fire.”

“Of course they did. It still smells like smoke out there.”

“If I saw one more shriveled hand go up to their hearts, I was going to lose my mind. What do they plan to do anyway? If not make a donation to reopening that place, then they should maybe be quiet. It’s not like that boy who ran it is around to hear their thoughts and prayers. Who knows where he's hiding? I'd go into a hole and never come out.”

“Wow,” she folded her last napkin and threw it down. “Maybe a touch of thoughts or prayers or just a little sympathy from you would be nice. There’s no donations they can make to reopen, unless someone donates like fifty thousand; the whole place is pretty much ash. Also what if he lived above that place like you? Then his home is gone too.”

“Something about his persona tells me he has a lovely condo on the Upper West Side.”

“Something about your attitude tells me you’re a little jealous.”

“Watch your tone,” he warned, waiting for her to stiffen, before adding, “Jealous of a fire? Please.”

“We talking about the fire?” Hasan sat at their table with a samosa in hand.

“No. We’re talking about anything else.” Tan put down a handful of silverware to reach over and fix Hasan’s shirt sleeves. “Please tell me these were not like this during lunch service.”

“No, dude, I’m just chilling now. I’d fix them for dinner.” He spoke with his mouth full. “Speaking of…”

“If you need the night off, I’m going to take this napkin and ram it—”

“Tan, PLEASE, this callback is such a big deal.”

“Why is every little chance you get such a big deal, when me trying to have a full staff to work tonight is not?”

“It’s not a _little_ chance.”

“What even is it?”

“I can’t tell you. Yet.”

He looked at his watch. “I need you to reset the tables.”

“I’ll see if I can get it rescheduled,” Hasan leaned forward and put his head in his arms as he texted on his phone.

The door opened, even though the sign said they were closed. “See that you do. Ah, Karamo! And who’s—"

“Look! It’s my favorite restaurant owner, known for his kindness, generosity, and open mind! Tan France! Tan, I’d like you to meet Antoni Porowski.”

Antoni didn’t make eye contact with Tan. He wasn’t really looking at anything in particular. His skinny jeans had a dusting of ash in a few different places and he smelled like a campfire. He had a Starbucks cup in his hand, which he didn’t take a sip of or acknowledge at any point.

“We've met,“ Tan said, eyeing the floor behind Antoni, making sure he didn't track ash inside.

Karamo put his hands on both of Antoni's shoulders and led him to his corner table. Antoni let himself be led, not blinking once. “Antoni’s not having the best day, so we’re here to get a hearty meal. He’ll sit with me.”

Tan didn’t follow them over to join that table like he usually did. “Karamo, love, the problem is it's between services right now. We’re getting ready and we’ll be open in an hour or so.”

“Oh good! So I’m right on time for me!” Karamo pulled out a chair and guided Antoni to sit. He reached over the bar and handed Antoni a menu. “Whatever you want is on me. Pick anything, it’s all good. So I’m told. I haven’t tried most of it.”

A small, dim light seemed to come on behind Antoni's eyes when he held the menu in his hands. In a soft voice, lower and scratchier than Tan remembered, he said, “Do they have malai kofta?”

“The best you’ll ever eat. At dinner service.” Tan looked at his watch. “Which is an hour. We can get you some rice. It might be a bit dry.”

“Can I talk to you?” Karamo asked, though it wasn’t really a question, as he led Tan away to the other side of the bar. “Listen. This guy is not in great shape. I saw him leave Starbucks and just walk straight into seventh ave without looking. He nearly got taken out by an MTA bus. I hope it wasn’t on purpose. I just want to sit with him and talk long enough to make sure it wasn’t.”

“Of course it wasn’t. What kind of moron commits suicide with Starbucks in their hand?” Tan crossed his arms and looked over at Antoni. He _did_ look pathetic, staring off into space, picking at the cardboard sleeve on his cup. It was hard not to feel bad for him, especially when Tan noticed a small ashy smudge on his cheekbone. “Karamo, why am I not to believe this idiot didn’t have some fault in what happened?”

“He didn’t burn it down himself, Tan. The guy’s totally shell-shocked over this. Also, I’ve talked to him before, and if you’re implying he’s involved in some sort of insurance fraud thing, I don’t think he’s thinking that far ahead. No offense to him, but he’s brand new to this side of the business. Besides, so what if it could have been his fault? Haven’t you made mistakes? Especially when you first took over?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t inferno-sized mistakes. More like order-too-much-chicken mistakes.” But as he leaned on the bar, he could feel his resolve dwindle. He watched as Hasan scurried over to pour Antoni a water and scurry back away. He chugged the water so fast he spilled some on his tee.

“Say what you will about him, but at least when I went to The Gathering, it was fully staffed.”

“You WENT to—”

“Relax, it was just for a coffee. And it was amazing. You should start a coffee thing here! Ask him for advice.”

“I don’t know where to start with you. You make fun of my staffing problems, you order from his place, you tell me I should ask HIM for advice, and you still want a table here. Early, no less.”

“Tan, please. Show a little mercy.”

Tan hopped off the stool. “You can’t sit at your regular table. It has to be in the back. I don’t want him in the front if he’s going to start crying.”


	4. Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to try to stick to the trend of updating on Fridays  
> if anyone cares
> 
> In this chapter you will start to see why space fic was so devoid of sexual content   
> it's because  
> I'm very awkward  
> at that
> 
> but we're going to try our damndest in this fic and just suffer through!

" _Heat is the element of transformation. It triggers the changes that take our food from raw to cooked, runny to set, flabby to firm, flat to risen, and pale to golden brown. At the heart of good cooking lies good decision making, and the primary decision regarding heat is whether to cook food slowly over gentle heat or quickly over intense heat. Learn to use all of your senses—including common sense—to determine which level and source of heat to use_."

\- Samin Nosrat, “Salt Fat Acid Heat”

* * *

“Let’s say. Let’s just say. Let’s just say, theoretically...” Jonathan started as he followed Tan into the kitchen to help put away the last of the dishes.

Tan took the stack from him. “Don’t hem and haw, dear. Whenever you do extra work, a request for a favor usually follows. What is it you need?”

“It’s not a favor, like, per se. It’s more like advice.”

“When have you ever followed my advice?”

“I might this time.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Would you mind if I went out with a regular?”

“That depends. Are you serious about actually meeting up with this one?”

“Yes because he—”

“Then yes, I would mind.”

“Tan, he checks all my boxes. And you know how many boxes I have.”

“’Rich’ is one of them, I take it.”

“Yes, that’s a box. Is that a crime?”

“So you don't want my advice. You want my blessing.”

“You are a beautiful silver-roofed church and I am a disciple praying within the walls of your soft beautiful skin.”

“Go on a date with a regular and you’re fired.” He turned to leave the kitchen, ignoring Jonathan stomping his foot.

“That’s no fair! Hasan gets numbers from little old ladies like all the time! Brad, you worked at like a hundred billion restaurants—tell him people do this and it’s no big deal, it’s like whatever. Right?”

Brad pretended he didn’t hear, scraping something off the bottom of a pan. He had been quiet for hours, longer than Tan ever remembered, and he wondered if he should say something. But there was a more pressing matter to deal with first.

Tan stopped in front of Karamo and Antoni’s table. He had dropped all his favorite hints and more-than-hints that it was the time to go—their table was cleared except for their glasses of water. Tan had the waiters count their tips in the open. And he turned the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’.

Before he could ask them to leave and wish Antoni luck on all future endeavors, Karamo held Tan’s wrist with one warm, strong hand. “I’m so happy to say that we’re doing a little better than we were three hours ago. Obviously, all is not right just because I’m here, but it’s nice to have a plan for moving forward. Right, Ant?”

Antoni nodded and looked at Karamo with exhaustion, but a hint of adoration, too. Tan knew this look. Everyone looked at Karamo that way when he worked his magic. But Tan had a different look. He shot Karamo raised eyebrows and a nod that asked what exactly this speech had to do with him.

Karamo just smiled back at Tan and put his other hand on Tan’s wrist. “Antoni is the kind of giving human that cares less about getting his money back and rebuilding his brand, and more about what’s going to happen to those he cares about. And he cares about every employee he has.”

 _You mean HAD_ , Tan wanted to correct. He fidgeted, trying to peek at his wristwatch under Karamo’s hands.

“I was wondering if you had any open positions here,” Antoni muttered. He still looked a little blank and tired, but food had done him a world of good—his skin had color now.

Tan heard him, but wanted to give Antoni a chance to retry that tone. “What was that?”

Antoni started to roll his eyes, but thought better of it. “I have an entire staff that lost their jobs tonight. I heard you might be looking for people with experience… who can start very soon.”

“Oh really? Did this one tell you that?” Tan looked at Karamo, using his eyes to express a threat, but Karamo only returned a smile and rubbed the skin on his wrist.

“No… they did.”

“Who is they? Wait, don't tell me.” Tan whipped around, away from Karamo. “Hasan! A word?”

“He left,” Jonathan called back from the bathroom, where he was applying an elaborate smoky eye for a night out on the town. “Obvi.”

“Was it you then?”

“Are you calling me a narc?” Jonathan put on his best adorable _Who, me?!_ tone but notably hadn't stepped out of the bathroom to meet Tan's eyes.

“It wasn’t just him,” Antoni said to Tan’s back. “It was everyone I talked to. I’m sorry if I overstepped. I’m just… desperate.”

“Desperate?” Tan turned back toward the table. Antoni was standing now. Tan assumed it was to gain some sort of authority, so he made a point of marching up to him and taking that authority right back. “In case you’ve forgotten, or in case you never cared to know, this restaurant has existed in the West Village likely since before you were born. _Certainly_ since before you had any inkling of a career in fine dining. Any one of your employees would be lucky to work here. Not desperate.” Antoni seemed more than a little freaked out by that lecture. His eyes were huge. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple working. For a moment, Tan remembered the events of that morning and felt sorry for him, but there was no taking it back now.

Antoni’s eyes darted to the side, likely to look at Karamo, and then back to Tan. “I want to emphasize. _I’m_ desperate. Not them. I’m desperate to keep good people on a paycheck. I only say desperate because I don’t know how many people you can take. But if you can take any at all, that would mean the world to me. And they’re not desperate, Tan, but they are deserving. They deserve a chance.”

At some point in that speech, Antoni’s eyes welled up, and Tan had to look away. “Let me talk to someone. See what I can scrape up.” Tan ducked away into the kitchen, hearing Antoni take a few deep breaths as soon as he left. Tan meant to make a beeline for his office, but all six feet and four inches of Brad stood in his way. “Is Anthony still here?”

“Antoni.”

“Huh what now?”

“Say it with me, dear. Antoni. An-to-ni.”

“Anth-OH-nee? That's kinda cool.”

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. You won’t see him again anyway after tonight. Why do you ask?”

“I just wanted to ask him about… making sure no one was in that fire.”

“I don’t think anyone was in that fire, Brad. He’d probably still be talking to police, not here eating your food. Why do you want to know?”

“Never mi- I, just, woulda felt bad is all.” He blushed before leaving the kitchen.

Before Tan could ask what the hell his problem was, Priya left the office, locking it behind her. “Did you talk to Antoni?”

“For quite some time. A touch too long, I'd say. Why? Did you also talk to him? Are you one of the people who told him every little thing about how we’re operating?”

“Yes. And it sounds like he has all the people we’ll need to have a full staff. We lucked out, huh?”

“Are you saying one man’s disaster is supposed to be my luck?”

“Well… I'm not quite saying that. What I am saying is that if you don’t at least interview his people, I quit and I’m taking Brad with me.”

He waited for her to stop fiddling with the lock and make eye contact. “You can’t be serious.”

“Sorry, Tan. I’m getting desperate.” Hearing that word again made him want to scream, but before he could, she said. “Making work schedules with only three people on rotation is giving me hives. Anyway, gotta go catch the L train. Byehaveagoodnight!” She was gone before the last syllable. Tan couldn’t believe she threatened him. He wasn’t angry or scared. What was he then? _Proud?_ At some point, he would need to teach her not to reveal her own fear by running out like that. _Otherwise, she did well for a beginner. I’ll make a bitch out of her yet._

Karamo interrupted Tan’s thoughts when he came up and hugged Tan from behind. “Did I ever tell you how good of a friend you are?”

“Don’t tell anyone else. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“You can talk to Antoni all night about your secrets.”

Tan stood still in the hug. “What does that mean.”

“It means he lived above his restaurant, which burned to the ground, and I told him about how comfy your West Elm couch is.” Without waiting for an answer, Karamo nearly flew out the door. “Have fun! Don’t fall in love without me there to watch!”

* * *

Tan waited until Antoni shuffled inside his foyer and closed the door behind him. “Leave your shoes up front, please. And then have a seat on the couch. I’ll be along to set you up in just a minute.” Not used to having people around, he had to put a hand on Antoni’s shoulder to squeeze by as he bent over to take off his Adidas, once white, now smudged with gray and black ash. Antoni’s shoulder was hard and hot, as if he had just come from the fire. Tan’s hand lingered as he passed. He half-wondered if Antoni was sick, and half didn’t care.

His space was really not made for two, which is something he had worried about when he was seeing Rob. Good thing they only ever seemed to go to Rob’s place.

He went straight to the linen closet in the hallway. One shelf was full of freshly folded gray, wrinkle-free sheets and the others were stocked with the shirts he wore to the restaurant. He only had one extra set of bed sheets and cringed to know a dusty, smoke-smelling stranger would be wrapped up in them. He pulled down a bath towel too and took this over to the couch first to make a point, but when he got to the couch, Antoni wasn’t there. Tan heard a clink in the kitchen further down the hall. “I said the couch, dear. There’s nothing to sleep on in the kitchen.”

“Sorry, I just saw some copper and had to come take a look… these pots are beautiful.”

“They were a gift from my mother.”

“What an amazing gift.”

“I think she was waiting for my wedding one day. When she figured out that wasn’t happening, she just gave them to me on some random Tuesday.”

Antoni looked up at Tan over the pot, waiting for more information, but Tan didn’t feel inclined to give it to him. This guy waltzes into his apartment, touches his pots, and wants to know his whole coming-out story? Not likely. “You’re going to think I’m very anal—not that I care-- but before you get into the sheets tonight, I would appreciate it if you took a shower. You don’t have to scrub yourself to pieces or anything. Just a rinse to get off… all of that.”

“And you’re going to think I’m a freeloader, but I don’t have any other clothes. Do you have something I could borrow to sleep in? I’ll get it washed for you.”

“Of course you will,” Tan held out the towel for him.

It took Antoni a few seconds to take it, distracted from looking around the kitchen. “Oh, sorry. This is just such a nice kitchen. It’s small but nice. Very well-stocked.”

“It’s well-stocked because I never have time to cook in here. I’m always downstairs in the restaurant. So everything here just collects—spices, flour, dust.”

“I understand. I couldn’t believe how quickly my life became the same way.” He took the towel and left into the bathroom.

Tan waited until he heard the water start until he let out an extended “UGGHH!” Something about that last comment really rubbed him the wrong way. How long would he have to host this guy? He took out his phone and shot a message to Karamo. _Sir, you really owe me one._

Karamo didn’t appear to be responding right away, so Tan went into his bedroom and peered into his stuffed closet, trying to figure out what to put on this guy. Like everyone else in the world besides Tan himself, this Antoni guy was a tall freak of nature (and P.S., the last unsuspecting Safdi’s waiter who suggested maybe Tan was short got fired in the middle of a super-packed Christmas dinner service), so he didn’t have much to give him. He pulled out a pair of basketball shorts intended strictly for workouts (since he didn’t have much time for workouts lately), a pair of briefs that he knew wouldn’t likely fit, and an NYC Restaurant Week t-shirt. Tan would never wear this outfit and wondered why he kept it around. Probably for a future one-night stand or boyfriend. Seemed like Antoni was as close as he was going to get. He “Ugh”ed again and went to the bathroom door, where he knocked once, and threw in the clothes.

Just as he finished unfolding the sheets and had lit a fresh lavender candle on the coffee table, Karamo texted him back. _I put a handsome single man who cooks as well as you into your apartment and I owe YOU one?_

This required a phone call. Karamo picked up after one ring. He sounded tired, but happy enough that Tan could hear his smile through the phone. “Hi, Tanny. How’s your slumber party?”

“Don’t ‘Tanny’ me. First of all, I’m the superior cook in this situation, by a long shot.”

“Did you even eat anything at The Gathering?”

“No, but it doesn’t take a genius to make an avocado toast and a hard-boiled egg. Not like you would eat anything there either.”

“Did too! Their oatmeal was out of this world.”

“You said you only got coffee.”

“I lied so you would be a little less mad at me. But you’re not here to slap me, so…”

“F.Y.I., I make fantastic oatmeal. Spiced, not bland like the mush these Americans try to--”

Karamo cut him off-- “I wouldn’t know, you’ve never invited me over to have it.”

“Come over right now and I’ll make you oatmeal if you take this sad child with you when you leave.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll come get him and find him a place with friends, or keep him with me. I just had something going on tonight.”

“What if _I_ did?”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Watch your tone or I’m throwing this man out on the street with a T-shirt and the number of the High Line Hotel.”

“Jokes aside, be gentle, Tan. Please. What happened to him today was traumatic. He needs a little T.L.C.”

“When have I EVER been one for that?”

“You’re a lot nicer than you let on. I know he’s not the first misguided soul who’s ended up on that couch.”

This caught Tan off guard for just a few seconds. He wondered how Karamo knew that. He should start asking him to leave earlier each night. “If you know that, then you know as well as I do that those staff members you’re talking about end up fired by the end of the week anyway.”

“You can’t fire Antoni since he doesn’t work for you, so what are you going to do? Just talk to him a little bit, Tan. You guys have things in common. And yeah, I would never recommend you have sex with someone the same night their workplace and home burn down, but if you build a connection, then down the road…”

“Karamo, dear, what gave you the idea that I’m so single?”

Karamo sighed. “Tan, Rob hasn’t called. It’s been weeks. Let it go. I know it sucks to get ghosted, and I know you really liked him. But someone who does that doesn’t deserve your time anyway.”

“Since when are you chief executive officer of MY TIME?”

Antoni had strolled into the living room, but hearing Tan snap at Karamo, slowly backed up into the bathroom.

Tan rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, Antoni. I talk to Karamo like this all the time.” He hung up just as he heard Karamo make a comment about Tan talking to everyone that way, including God Herself.

Antoni said something as he came over, but Tan was a little distracted. Antoni was wearing the shorts Tan gave him, but no shirt. Tan couldn’t figure out if he actually thought Antoni’s torso and biceps were impeccable, or if he was just lonely and thirsty. Tan was wearing his own favorite silk pajamas, the copper-colored pair, and suddenly they seemed insufficient, which they never had before. But why? He couldn’t place it. Hard to place anything, with Antoni walking around like that. His hair was wet, dripping, a drop of water falling down his abs. Tan cleared his throat and brought himself back to into reality. “I included a T-shirt in the bathroom, you know.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

When Antoni walked to the bathroom, Tan called after him, “What were you saying when you came in?”

“I said, I’d hate to be on your bad side.”

The T-shirt was too tight on him. In the best way. Now Tan had to look away. Why didn’t he just let him stay shirtless? “You kind of already are, dear. If we’re being honest.”

“You’re always honest, I take it.”

“You learn fast.”

“I like that about you.”

Now Tan blushed. He was happy he was looking away, and waited until the heat in his face faded before he turned to Antoni. But if Antoni pointed it out, Tan would quickly say that it had only to do with the fact that no one had ever said they liked how honest he was before. Of course, it had nothing to do with the man actually saying it to him. Of course. “Speaking of, let’s get down to business. You want me to hire your staff.”

“I’m so sorry, Tan, but… my mind is a blur of insurance policies and police reports and… Can we go over details in the morning?”

“Yes, fine. But I get up early.”

“How early?”

“Five A.M. Lots to do downstairs.”

“Oh, wonderful. I usually woke up at four. Just wanted to start the day off on the right foot, you know?”

And with that humblebrag, any attraction melted right away again. Tan felt back in action. He popped up from the couch. “Time for bed then. Do you need anything else?” Antoni was staring forward, unblinking. “Hello? Antoni? Are you all set?” Something about Antoni’s stare was creeping him out. Tan followed his eyes to the coffee table, then to the candle. “Oh, hell. Fuck me. I’m sorry. I’ll blow that out right now.”

“No, don’t, it’s fine. It’s better than fine, actually, I was just thinking about how it reminded me of my own place. I loved candles. I used to light them just before I went to bed. Which I know is kind of dangerous, but I couldn’t sleep without it.” He stared into the flickering light for just a few seconds before he said, “I know what you’re thinking, but that wasn’t why there was a fire. I haven’t used any for a couple months. But it would have been kind of funny, since my ex always said that I was going to burn the place down one day. Guess he was right.”

Tan didn’t know what to say to that. What was there to say? He figured it was time to offer a reassuring touch of some kind. He reached out, meaning to touch Antoni’s shoulder, but at the last minute, landed on his damp hair. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but it felt right. He stroked his hair a couple times and left for his room, pretending not to notice Antoni watching him all the way down the hall.


	5. Fermentation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've missed writing for Bobby so much. I also just miss him so much. I know, I know, he's on instastories constantly, but that's not the same as getting real content. I need some real new Bobby content asap.
> 
> If it looks like I'm not planning out my fic correctly  
> it's only because I'm not
> 
> comments give me power in taurus season
> 
> If you're bored, I have another fic where everyone is toys lol  
> and the OG space fic where Antoni Gets Kidnapped  
> and other fics in other fandoms.  
> xoxo gossip girl

" _The recipe goes like this: peel a ton of garlic, crush it, pour raw honey over ‘em, wait a week._

 _Why crush it? That releases the allicin, the oxygenated sulfur compound that gives garlic its stink, and therefore the honey really takes on that garlic flavor. Everything in the jar bubbles during the process, and when the bubbles stop, fermentation stops, and that’s the best time to eat it, per Brad. This is usually after the week depending on some environmental factors. (“I like to go for two,” said Brad, with the but-that’s-just-me hand gesture.) As the garlic ferments, it softens and mellows, which means it's fair game too—you can easily eat a clove and go back for more_."

\- Alex Beggs, _Bon Appetit_ , fermented garlic honey recipe

* * *

“There you are!” At seven A.M., Antoni opened the door to Tan’s office with a small kick. He smelled like some sort of woodsy cologne, new clothes, and the two iced coffees he was holding.

Tan wanted to ask how he knew where his office was, but when he looked up and saw Antoni, what came out of his mouth was, “Where did you get that suit?”

Antoni carefully put the coffees on his desk before he did a semi-circle, looking into Tan’s office mirror (what, _you_ don't have one mirror for your bedroom and one for your office?). “Target. Can you believe it? They had this in a Tar-zhay.”

“This morning?”

“Yeah. I stopped in for some clothes before grabbing us coffee.”

“Huh… off the rack,” Tan murmured, more to himself. He knew his own figure was adorable, he didn’t doubt his own attractiveness for a second. Still, he wondered how simple it would be to have the kind of body that could wear whatever it wanted off the rack, not have to get inches taken off the legs of every pair of pants in the world if he was interested in something even close to a cropped fit. And here was Antoni, his ankles out in all their glory. Who did he think he was?

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Just… what brings you here?” He crossed his legs (he had amazing tan ankles to show off too) and clutched his clipboard to his chest. He tapped it a few times with his pen.

“What do you mean? We’re interviewing.”

“No, no— you’re not interviewing anybody. I’m interviewing all your little friends lined up in my restaurant at the crack of dawn. If anyone will be doing it with me, it’s—”

“Priya? I sent her to the cafe two doors down to get some work done in peace and quiet. And to put whatever she wants on my tab. They know me and owe me a couple favors.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Tan was aware he was tapping the clipboard at warp speed now. “Then maybe _they_ could hire some of these folks out there.”

“Trust me, you’ll love all these people. They just need a little… unlocking. I’ll show you.” Antoni took a seat next to Tan on the couch. “One of those coffees is for you, by the way.”

“They need coasters.” He hoped this tone would get to Antoni, sort of hoped ANYTHING would.

But just as quick as he sat, Antoni popped back up and went out to the kitchen, smiling all the way. “You're so right. I'll grab us a pair.” On his way out, he nearly collided with and half-caught Jonathan, who was throwing open the door from the other side. “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?”

Jonathan righted himself, holding on to Antoni’s biceps, rubbing the fabric of the simple black suit. “Am I okay? Am I?”

“Yeah… are you? You don’t look so good. Do you want to sit?”

“No… no sitting, thanks…” He rubbed Antoni’s arms a couple more times and turned to Tan. “I need to talk to Tan. My boss. That lovely man right there with the hair and the nose and the little khakis… all of it gorgeous.”

“Got it… have we met? I’m Antoni.”

“I’m Jonathan. I wait tables. And I model.”

“That’s… awesome. I’ll be right back. Can I get you some water? Are you sure you don’t want to sit?”

“No… I’m good… you’re good. Run along. Be free.” Jonathan waited as Antoni looked him over with concern, then left into the kitchen. As soon as the door clicked shut, Jonathan said to Tan, “I’ll only sit if it’s on his face.”

Tan was impressed Jonathan still had the presence of mind to make that comment, considering how much he was sweating and how pale he was. His hair was out in loose waves, not the usual straight mane he had. His bottom eyelids still had a thin line of smudged eyeliner. “You do look like you’ve had… a night. Did you get my text?”

“I did. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m being a good little head waiter… here to help corral the newbies and… water the plants.”

“You don’t look ready. You look like you’re going to pass out. And you also look…” Tan leaned forward to peer into Jonathan’s eyes. They were huge and dark. “Jonathan. Are you high?”

“Please don’t fire me. I didn’t mean to. It was gonna be done by the time my shift started, I swear. It supposed to be so little, like a microdose. It was one of those silent raves, where like people wear the headphones and dance all night. And I took this tab from someone and I even halved it but I still… I mean… what was I… your text saved me, by the way.”

“How so?”

“I was seriously in a hole. I thought I was on like that boat from _Charlie in the Chocolate Factory_ in the nightmare tunnel, but then you texted me to come in early and help with interviews, and it brought me back to reality a little. Just enough so I realized I was in a taxi. And that yodeling noise I was hearing was the driver asking where I lived. But I forgot because you had just texted me. Soooo. Here I am.”

“… You didn’t go home. You came straight here.”

“I know, yikes times ten. Please don’t fire me.”

“I won’t… just because what’s the point if you don’t even realize it’s happening.” Tan took Jonathan’s shoulders and led him to the door. “Don’t bother with a list or anything. Every time you see someone leave our office, just point to someone else and say ‘You’re next.’ It will seem coordinated. When I come out, it means we’re done interviewing everyone, and you’ll go home and I’ll cover for you until you’ve had a nap and a meal. While I’m doing this, please also text one of your other two little waiter friends and see if they’ll come in early to replace you.”

Jonathan stood in the doorway, ticking off his fingers as he said, “Watch the door, when someone is done, point to a new person, tell them they’re next, text Papi, text Hasan, go home, don’t dye or cut my hair.”

“Especially don’t do that.”

Antoni appeared and paused in front of Jonathan again, holding two coasters and a cup of tea. He handed the tea to Jonathan. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Please fuck me. I mean, adopt me. Shit. Wait. Which of those is more professional?”

Antoni seemed to be trying to figure out how to respond. He chose, “You have such beautiful hair.”

Jonathan looked up at Antoni’s. “Yours has such natural oils.”

Then Jonathan walked away, and Antoni looked relieved to not have to answer. Someone was standing behind him. Antoni was giving Tan a rather toothy smile. “I have the first person I think you should meet.”

Tan settled back in with his clipboard and reached for his iced coffee. He really preferred some cream in it, but Antoni kept his black, and so for some reason, cream felt like a weakness. “Did it occur to you, Antoni, that I might have a certain order I’d like to see these people in?”

“Maybe, but… I mean… I really think she’ll get us off on the right foot.” Antoni led in a small young woman with bangs. Right away, Tan cocked his head to the side—she looked incredibly familiar.

She kept her hands clasped in front of her pilled black cardigan. She was so nervous her hands shook. “Hi, Tan.”

Tan squinted at her. “Have we met?”

“Yeah, I… used to work here.”

Antoni froze midway to sitting down on the couch. “Tess, you didn’t tell me that.”

Tan looked between her and Antoni. “Well, someone better explain, ASAP.”

Antoni still crouched. “I didn’t know she worked here. That wasn’t on her resume.”

“Because it was only for a few days before I got fired.”

Antoni stood up and put his hands on his hips. “You got fired from here? How?”

“Well, actually, that’s why I even came in. I didn’t really think I was going to get this job… again. I just came in because I wanted some closure I guess. Between what happened to The Gathering, and getting fired from here, and having to leave the place before this… I think the world is telling me I should go back home for a while.” During her speech, Antoni made his way over to her and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. Tan suppressed a gag. “But before I go, I want to know what I did so wrong here.”

Tan had a million questions in return, most of them starting with “HOW DARE YOU” but before he could say anything, Antoni turned to him, his forehead creased in something like worried anger. “How could you fire Tess? She’s been the perfect waitress for us.”

“Well, OBVIOUSLY not!” Tan nearly threw his pen at Tess. “You must have done something.”

“All you told me was to stop starting at you with my big wet eyes and come back when I’ve figured out how to look like a professional.”

“You ARE a professional,” Antoni now had both of his hands on her shoulders, and turned her to look into his eyes while he said that. This time Tan couldn’t supress his gag reflex. Antoni heard the noise and rolled his eyes in Tan’s directions. “Tan, this girl is over a decade younger than me and she has more wine knowledge in her pinky finger than I do in my entire body.”

Tan rolled his eyes. “Antoni, anyone can google that shit. Tell me, ma’am, what exactly, besides information I can get from a textbook, did you gain to make me believe you’re a professional since I fired you God knows when?”

She unclasped her hands, coming to life a little bit behind her bangs. “How can you not remember? It was last week!”

After taking in all this, Antoni said, “Tan, do you not even remember who you had working here a week ago? How often do you go through servers?”

“I’m not sure how that’s any of your business?”

“How do you expect to run a restaurant without a staff you can trust?”

Antoni may be able to wear a suit with less tailoring, but he was not going to beat Tan in a telling-off contest. “Ah! I see you waltz in here for one morning and believe you have the answer to my problems. Your problem, Antoni, is your blind faith in anyone who has even a lick of charm. If I let charm run my restaurant, then I might as well walk out and let Jonathan run the show. But I don’t, because he doesn’t know enough and—”

“And he comes to work high?” Antoni sipped his iced coffee, like he was over it already. He said to Tess, “Maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging you to work here after all. Maybe this was a mistake.”

Tan felt his face get hot. He looked down at his clipboard to avoid showing it. It was one thing for him to scold Jonathan; after all, he was Jonathan’s boss. But Antoni didn’t know a damn thing about Jonathan. Tan looked down his list of names and made a show of crossing out Tess’s name. “Maybe you’re a complete ingrate who thinks he has everyone’s number.”

Antoni scoffed. “MAYBE I just realized I know how to communicate properly with my staff.”

“MAYBE you don’t know a goddamn thing about this place!”

“It’s not hard to tell what’s going on,” Antoni stirred his coffee like this conversation couldn’t interest him less. “And it’s not hard to tell you won’t hire Tess, or any of my people, because you’re scared they might actually teach you a thing or two.”

In the midst of all their yelling, Tess had slowly backed out of the room, leaving the door into the kitchen ajar. As soon as Tan realized it, he popped out of his seat. He tossed his clipboard aside and marched out after her.

When she saw him come out behind her, she ran out of the kitchen and into the lobby. Tan ran after her, throwing open the door to the seating area. She tripped and fell on her own skinny legs. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to offend! Please don’t throw anything at me!”

Tan stomped over to her. She shielded her eyes and Tan imagined if they got any bigger, her head wouldn’t be able to hold them anymore. She was cringing in fear when he shouted, “Tess, congratulations, you are rehired, effective immediately!”

She remembered her eyelids and blinked at him at least ten times before asking, “I am?”

“Yes. Congrats again. Go home and _iron your shirt for the love of God_ then come right back. We need a hostess for lunch service today.”

She hesitated.

“NOW what?”

“I had another question.”

“Please GO ON and ask it as I am the kind of boss who hears out all of his lovely employees no matter how wrinkled their shirts.”

“I was thinking. Actually. I know you don’t have a sommelier here. I was thinking I could do that.”

Antoni’s gaggle of stylish young adults, most of them clutching resumes in leather binders while they waited, were frozen in their seats, except for their heads turning from Tess to Tan. Jonathan was watching the whole thing, mouth and eyes wide open, from where he sat in front of Lola, who was French braiding his hair and couldn’t look more bored with the whole scene. Jonathan pointed a hesitant hand at Tan. “You’re next?”

“No, dear. Not to me. To anyone else.”

Jonathan thought about this. When Antoni came out and stood behind Tan, sipping his coffee, Jonathan pointed at Antoni. “… You’re next?”

Tan glared at Antoni. He was watching Tan with a crooked (maybe just a little teeny tiny bit endearingly so) smile. “And what the fuck are you looking at?”

Claire raised a pale, slightly shaky hand. Even in her best interview outfit, the black shirtdress had a few dusty flour stains on it. “I really don’t like getting yelled at, so can I go next and get it over with?”

“No one’s going to yell at you!” Tan and Antoni said at the same time. Tan was aware he was yelling, which made her hand shoot back down. Tan turned to Antoni. “Who is that timid creature?”

“That’s Claire. She would have happily cooked some amazing food for you at The Gathering if you stuck around long enough to try any when you came in. Oh, do you remember Lola?” Antoni said to Tan, gesturing to her. “She made your latte just this past weekend.”

“Of course I remember, you moron. Lola, you’re hired too. Look, see? I remember people.”

“She’s hired?” Now this voice belonged to Papi, who just came in, hair sticking out in multiple directions, Metrocard still in his hand. “Why is SHE hired?”

Lola had not looked up from the braid. “I make baristas look damn good.”

He waved his card at the waiting interviewees. “You are hiring all these people? ALL these people and you won’t even give my friend a chance? And since when do we have a barista?!”

Lola nodded at Tan. “Ask him. Probably around the same time you started having sommeliers.”

“Hello,” Tess said to him from where she hid behind Antoni.

“I do not know what that word means but I should be mad about that too?”

“It’s a wine expert.”

Now he whipped around to Tan. “Oh, so you care about wine more than refugees?"

“Baby, come here,” Jonathan waved at Papi. Even through his drug-addled state, Jonathan could sense when someone needed a soothing hand (and when Tan needed an extra moment to think of an answer). “You got here so fast, your hair is such a mess, let me—”

“NO I don’t want my hair did! I just want to give my man—my boy—my FRIEND I MEAN a job here! What does he have to do? Burn down our house too?”

“Whoa, we talking about burning buildings? Pap-Pap, you into arson, bud?” Now Brad walked in, all backwards baseball cap and wide blue eyes. He gestured to Tan with his kombucha, almost a toast. “Or are you the one into fire, Tan? Yeh, I know a thing or two about kindling, by the way. I got some logs at home. I could-- Waitasec, you need insurance money, chief?”

“Trust me, it doesn’t come fast…” Antoni muttered.

“No one is burning anything,” Tan held his hand out. “Papi, dear, take a deep breath and come into my office, and let’s find somewhere for your friend—”

Papi stomped his foot. “I don’t want him to work SOMEWHERE I want him to work HERE with ME!” His accent was coming on so thick it was almost incomprehensible.

“This is a lot of yelling. Claire, are you okay?” Antoni wandered over to where she was in one of the booths, crouching under the table.

“Yes, I’m fine, just don’t talk to me!” She brought a menu down with her and was covering her face.

“Claire? Did you say _Claire_?” Brad dropped his backpack to the floor just in front of the entrance. “Is that CLAIRE SAFFITZ under the table?”

“No!” She said. “It’s not! Mind your own business!”

“OH HO _HO!_ Tell me, what did I finally do RIGHT to get the great HALF-SOUR SAFFITZ HERSELF to grace me with her presence in MY TURF?” Everytime he raised his voice, something in the bar shook.

“YOUR turf?” Tan said. “Sir, need I remind you that your call time is seven A.M. at the latest for prep, and you’re nearly an hour late!”

“Wait, for prep work?” Claire crawled out from under the table. “Brad, you do ALL of the prep work here?!”

“Maybe that’s the way I LIKE IT, Claire!”

“Brad that makes NO SENSE! This is why I never came to eat where you worked! I knew you would just try to do it whatever crazy way you felt like doing it!” Now she was up and out, yelling at him, needing to tilt her head all the way up to reach him, still clutching a menu.

“Excuse me? Any crazy way HE likes it?” Tan said.

Brad ignored Tan. “So you KNEW I was here!”

“Everyone you could send an EMAIL or MESSAGE or CARRIER PIGEON knew!”

“How would I know you knew if you never ANSWER MY TEXTS?”

“MAYBE I WANTED YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“AND MAYBE I WAS LATE THIS MORNING BECAUSE I WAS CHECKING THE LOCAL HOSPITALS TO MAKE SURE YOU WEREN’T HALF DEAD IN SOME BURN UNIT!”

Midway through Brad’s last sentence, Tan reached into the kitchen and grabbed a rolling pin. He smacked the tile floor with it, and it echoed across the room. “ORDER IN MY RESTAURANT!!!”

Everything went silent. You could hear a pin drop. Or, the _thunk_ of someone trying to open the door and hitting Brad’s backpack.

Even though the guest only was able to stick his head in, Tan didn’t need to see a sharp pastel suit to know who it was. He could tell from having studied the man’s headshot online, and praying that those bright blue eyes and floppy dark blonde hair would enter Safdi’s and grace it with his presence and his notebook. The only difference was the sculpted beard he had grown, and Tan had to admit, it gave Bobby Berk the rakish charm he needed to push him from most important and hip food critic in New York City who was also super cute into the territory of most important and hip food critic in New York City who was also crazy hot. He looked around the restaurant. “Sorry, I’ve never been here before, but… you guys wouldn’t happen to do breakfast, would you?”


	6. Eggs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this update was a little later than usual  
> I think another is coming v soon  
> and I feel like you'll like the next one  
> wink wink
> 
> I'm not in a swell mood  
> (I think it's all the retrograde nonsense maybe)  
> so please comment unless you want to say something negative  
> then  
> don't comment
> 
> I'm definitely not going to be the kind of famous writer who reads her own bad reviews in the paper that's for damn sure.

_“José Andrés, the best-known Spanish chef working in the United States today, is the new dean of Spanish Studies at the International Culinary Center in Manhattan. On a recent afternoon in the Culinary Center’s kitchen, Mr. Andrés held forth on the essential Spanishness of the fried egg._

_‘My whole life, I have been trying to cook an egg in the right way,’ he said. ‘It is the humbleness of the dish. Why do you need to do anything more complex?’”_

\- “The Perfect Fried Egg”, New York Times

* * *

“We absolutely do breakfast!” Tan lied. “We make a very good breakfast, in fact.” He jumped in front of Bobby’s line of sight, hoping that he was tall enough to hide his currently chaotic dining room (he isn’t).

“Oh, lucky me! For some reason, I thought you didn’t, and I decided to pop by The Gathering today, but it seems to be… gone.”

Bobby Berk was a casual attendee of The Gathering but didn’t even have an inkling of Safdi’s schedule? Tan had to tuck one little-white-booted foot behind the other to resist fitting it through the door and kicking Bobby in the shin. Instead he just tapped his foot and said, “Big fire. Many renovations needed. To say the least.”

“Really? That’s terrible.”

“Damn shame, huh?”

“Usually I hear about these kinds of things. My husband and I try to look at our phones as little as possible over the weekend so we must have missed it.”

Tan felt much better now. Bobby was also gay! There was hope for them being best friends yet and taking over the downtown culinary world with a mutual appreciation for cumin and tailoring. “That’s a gay- GREAT idea! Me and my boyfriend will have to try it.”

“Your what?” Jonathan said in the background, snorting. Tan ignored him and made a mental note to start enforcing hair nets. For Jonathan only.

“You and your boyfriend definitely should,” Bobby said with a tone that made it clear that part of the conversation was over. “So can I… come in and sit down?”

“Do you mind giving me just a few seconds? My employees are having a little trouble… motivating… the eggs.”

Bobby nodded, obviously trying to figure out what that meant, but after a few seconds just gave a firmer nod.

Tan shut the front door. First he pointed to Brad. “You, in the kitchen. Hurry. Start thinking of breakfast ideas. Something with eggs and a carb. A meat if you can think of one.” Off Brad went, knowing better than to argue. Tan pointed to Papi. “You. My office, my desk, top drawer on the left side, grab a brush and some hairspray, do something about your hair for approximately one minute, when you come out, have an excuse ready about why we don’t have printed breakfast menus.”

When Papi just stared at him for a moment. “Don’t challenge me in front of Bobby Berk, boy. If you think I’ve mistreated you before, you do NOT want to know what I’d do now.” The small murmurs amongst Antoni’s gaggle of hipsters was silenced. Papi blushed and left for the office. Tan pointed to Jonathan. “You. Sit behind the bar. Look like you belong there, polish glasses or something. And HYDRATE for the love of God.” Jonathan saluted the way someone does when they’ve never seen a real salute before. He sashayed behind the bar. Tan addressed the rest of them. “The rest of you leave out the back door and come back in two hours.” He heard one hip mumble of protest and said, “That was not a suggestion.” They all scurried out.

Except for Claire. She walked right up to Tan. She was even shorter than him, but he still felt a small tug of something like intimidation making eye contact with her. It was probably just her eyebrows—Tan can appreciate a well-groomed brow. “I want to help. I’m good at a lot of things, but I’m _damn_ good at breakfast.”

“After that little display?” She cringed when he said that, breaking eye contact. “I’m not sure I trust you around my head chef with a hot pan.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I promise I don’t lose control like that all the time. I get stressed, sure, I mean, who doesn’t, but… you know when you see someone… _important_ for the first time in a long time… and you forgot how to act normal around them?” Tan wanted to answer no, he was always in control of his emotions. But she raised one nice eyebrow and kept going. “Also… is he your ‘head chef’ or is he your ONLY chef in the house? Maybe you want all hands on deck to make the right impression?”

“Watch your tone,” he said, but also, “Follow me.”

As soon as they got into the kitchen, Antoni was there, talking Brad’s ear off about something. As soon as the door opened, he redirected his eager brown eyes and eager gay energy to Tan. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“No,” Tan said, not meeting his eyes or energy. Then to Brad, “What are you making?”

“I was thinkin’ I take all the leftover vegetables from the Jaipur curry special. Also the paneer that’s gonna go bad in like two days anyway. Big omelette, just full of all the shit we didn’t get to use! It’s what all the other overpriced hip places do for Sunday brunch already.”

Claire made a face. “Not all of them.”

He rolled his eyes, never once letting them land on her. “So you admit your place was overpriced.”

“Well, for what you were getting? No. Usually this meant a WHOLE brunch dish. What, are you just going to plop all that on a plate and give it to Bobby?”

“She’s right,” Tan said, ignoring that Brad looked like that was a slap in the face. “What are you doing on the side?”

“I have an idea for that,” Antoni tried again.

“No. Brad, what are you doing on the side? Fresh naan?”

“Ah yeah, actually, maybe an egg, just like a well-seasoned guy or two, those could go on naan. And all the other stuff, that could be like a, with potatoes, like a, like aaaa…”

“Hash?” Antoni suggested.

“Yeah! He’s got it.”

“He’s got nothing,” Tan said. “If you can’t make something called _hash_ look good on my plates then don’t bother. And naan? How can you make that into an obvious breakfast item?”

“Is there time for that?”

“If you have old naan, I can freshen it up,” Claire offered, throwing up her hands, as if she expected to get shot. “Garlic. Butter. An oven. That’s all I need.”

“Most of our naan already has garlic,” Tan said. “Except for Karamo’s, and I don’t think anyone else cares for it that way.”

“There’s never too much garlic,” Claire and Brad said at the said time. Then, both blushing, they walked around to opposite sides of the kitchen to start working.

Antoni watched them start their dishes, then turned to Tan, who had started a text message to Priya, which thus far read: _Red alert emergency and if you don’t put whatever fucking iced coffee you’re drinking down right now and get your ass over here or so fucking help me I will take my boot and,_ but then Antoni interrupted him. “Can I make you a deal?”

“Why is everybody always trying to MAKE DEALS with me? Whose building even is this?”

“Hear me out, and give it a try, and if it works, then awesome, I’m happy to help,” This gave Tan pause. He couldn’t remember the last time someone was happy to help him. “And if it doesn’t, I will leave here and never come back and be out of your hair forever.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”

“I need this man served within half an hour, max.”

“Done,” Antoni made a beeline for the fridge, grabbing some quart containers of food, and butter, eggs, and cream, then going right for a small saucepan. He knew where all these items were instinctively, as if he had always worked there. Right away he begin stirring some sort of slurry around and scooping all sorts of ingredients into the pan. His tanned hands cracked eggs like it was something he had been doing since he was a toddler.

Tan was so fixated for those couple of minutes on Antoni’s nimble fingers stirring eggs in a saucepan, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, that he almost didn’t notice Papi trying to slip by him back out to the floor. Tan reached over and grabbed him by the shirt collar. “What are you going to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must do better than that. Also your hair needs more brushing. Back to the closet with you. And watch that _tone_ already.” He sent him back toward the office and marched out to the floor himself.

Lola met him at the doorway. She must not have left with the other hipsters. “I can make this man a latte so good he will forget what a menu even is.”

“You’re so hired.”

“I knew I was.”

“That tone—”

“I heard—watch it.”

He wanted to say something else, but let her slip out, wondering where she even was going to find a contraption to froth milk with.

Tan occupied himself for a few minutes poking around at what Brad was doing, but quickly grew bored. Papi walked up to Tan, his hair tamed, his shirt tucked in, his eyes facing the floor as they usually did. He looked pathetic, so Tan used his whole hand to fix his slouching shoulders instead of the usual fingernails. “Much better, dear. What are you going to tell him?”

“He’s already been told about Safdi’s temporary limited breakfast menu while it sets out to plan the quickest, smartest, most flavorful ways to integrate Indian and Pakistani cultures into a whitewashed West Village brunch landscape.”

“That’s… pretty good, my boy. Huh.” It was a lot of buzzwords, but it wasn’t a bad idea, and he was already looking forward to seeing that in a write-up. “How did you come up with that?”

“I didn’t. Jonathan did.”

“WHAT? Jonathan’s TALKING to him? Oh my god, disaster. He is as high as a kite. Please go put a stop that right now.”

“Maybe the girl making lattes for you now can do it,” Even though his eyes were glued to the floor, he said that with more than a little sarcasm and bitterness. “I have to go to class.” 

He headed out, and before Tan could call after to him to stick his tone where the sun didn’t shine, Brad called out, “Chief, I think we have breakfast!”

Tan was comforted by that familiar confidence and smile returning to Brad’s voice, but he still raised an eyebrow as he came over to the counter and put a clean white plate out in front of the chefs.

Brad reached his pan out to slide out the world’s most perfectly fried egg, crispy on the outside, with a light dusting of seasoning. Just before it hit the plate, Claire slid a fresh piece of bread under it, looking like an English muffin, but obviously made of repurposed naan.

Tan nodded, despite himself, and said, “That looks beautiful.”

Then Antoni reached his sauce pan out and poured a thick orange sauce over the whole thing.

Tan nodded again. Calmly, he said, “I might kill you with the pan you’re holding.”

Antoni nodded right back, as if he expected that answer. “That’s a hollandaise made from the leftover sauce of your very amazing malai kofta plus some extra curry powder and other goodies I found in the spice rack. And that—” Now he gestured at the whole plate. “Is a Safdi’s eggs benedict.”

Tan scoffed. Like this guy should know about what a Safdi’s _anything_ is, much less the first major breakfast item they were to ever serve. He couldn’t wait to taste it and rip apart how much it didn’t fit. He reached out to grab a washcloth, wiped his hands, and then stuck a finger in the saucepan to taste the hollandaise. And of course, it was—perhaps the best sauce he ever tasted.

It wasn’t just that the spice profile was complex and rich, and yet, not so spicy it was painful or distracting, just enough to wake you up. It wasn’t just that the texture was even and rich and yet not cloying, not sticky, not too thick or thin. It wasn’t even just that the color was amazing, a bright yet natural orange, like a setting sun. It was that somehow it reminded Tan of home. Of his mother.

How did Antoni do that? The only notion that man had of Tan’s mother was manhandling her copper pots from the night before.

What exact food memory was this, crossing Tan’s mind? It wasn’t her lamb jalfrezi, or her golden lentil soup, or the karahi they perfected together in his adolescence, the first menu item they made together that Tan’s father approved for the official Safdi’s menu. What happened to that? When did it get taken off? If he found the recipe, could he get it put back on? Where could it be?!

“Chief?” Brad asked in as gentle a tone as he could muster.

“What?” was all Tan found in his present-brain.

Claire made eye contact with Brad, waited a few seconds for him to say something, but then said, “Can we take it out to the floor?”

Tan searched that useless present-brain for an excuse, finding nothing. He just said, “Yes, sure.”

Antoni put his hand under the plate; perfect balance with no trouble. Before he walked out, he looked up one last time. “Tan? Are you okay?”

He didn’t quite know why, but after thinking for a few seconds, Tan said, “Send me Jonathan.”

\--------------------

Jonathan didn’t know how he ended up sitting at Bobby Berk’s table, flipping through Instagram photos of the beach house Bobby was currently remodeling. Bobby held his latte in one hand, using the other to gesture through the narration about how humidity affected the house’s foundation. Jonathan knew that right about now, his high should be worn off almost completely, and he did feel very in touch with our plane of existence, but for some reason he was still dripping sweat.

“For just about everything except our master bedroom we were going for a mid-century modern feel because it sort of fits what’s trendy in wine country right now, but we really had to have something more classic to come home to and unwind in. What better way to do that, we figured, than a dark, bold blue—almost an INDIGO, really-- for the base color of the kitchen and living room. Much like here, actually!” Bobby craned his head around to look around the restaurant. “Such a neat presentation, just everything white and blue. I have to tell you, I haven’t been somewhere this clean in a while. Everyone is doing that industrial thing now—which is fine! I love the look! But the perma-dust, the general rusty vibe, it’s not my preferred thing to eat in, you know?”

Jonathan searched his brain for an answer that would not in any way wreck Tan’s chances of a sparkling review, yet something that was still believable coming out of his mouth. All he could come up with was, “And how do you feel about that?”

“That’s an interesting question! I guess it makes the whole thing feel a little forced, frankly. I know those places are paying too much money in rent for the industrial look to be accidental. It takes a little of the magic out of seeing plumbing pipes overhead if I knew the copper finish on them cost extra, you know?”

“Oh, I know, believe me.” Jonathan knew all sorts about metals. He had been tasting funny metals for the last twelve hours.

“Are you okay? You look a little—”

“We’re nervous, just nervous, that’s all. Maybe a little warm. I’m a little warm too, just a smidge, but the nerves are the leading lady here.” He kept going, hoping the more he spoke, it would somehow make him seem more sober. “Because you’re like, a big deal, Bobby Beyonce Berk. Of the food world. And of the… pipe world, I see.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous. I’m not actually sure I’ll write up this place quite yet.” He looked around at the ceilings again, thoughtful. “You guys run like a well-oiled machine, I hear. I didn’t mean to spring a surprise breakfast mission on you. It wouldn’t really be fair to review that.”

“Right, I understand,” Jonathan said, not understanding at all. He didn’t nod for fear of sweat movement.

“This is a really good latte.”

“Tell all your friends.”

“No matter how the breakfast is, this is worth the price of admission.”

“Well, I hope the breakfast is satisfactory, too!” Antoni appeared, all perfect posture and perfect hair and perfect eggs. He set a plate down in front of Bobby. “I hope you don’t mind a sort of limited menu today. Still getting the brunch routine down pat, but we hope you’ll join us once it’s fully integrated.”

Jonathan looked up at the word ‘ _We_ ’, but Antoni maintained eye contact with Bobby, who wasted little time retorting, “And when would that be?”

Antoni almost faltered, looking up to find the answer in his Clark Kent swoop, coming up with, “Two weeks. Or so. It depends on, you know… press. Um, oh right, Jonathan, could you pay a visit to the office in the next few minutes?”

Bobby stopped eating to watch Jonathan get up and go into the office. He said to Antoni, “He’s a delight.”

“I’m very sorry, sir, he seems a little out of sorts today. He might be getting—well, not ill, I mean, we would never allow an ill employee to serve you, but maybe he’s just, you know… it’s summer.”

“I hope he’s here when I come back in two weeks.” Bobby looked up at Antoni to laugh. “Or I might not come back at all!”

They shared a hearty laugh for a moment, until Bobby said, “Kinda hard to eat with you, like, staring,” and Antoni walked backwards until he hit a wall, then turned into the kitchen to put his head in the freezer for a couple minutes.

Meanwhile, Jonathan wanted to run to the office, but his feet felt unsteady. He only wanted to run to show Tan how much his opinion meant, but also knew Tan hated people who looked rushed. The pressure of fulfilling both needs wasn’t helping his balance.

Finally, with the help of the kitchen walls and counters, he made it into the office. Tan was standing, his back to the door. “Okay, so I know this is no excuse, but I just want to remind you—I never would have taken any drugs if I knew I had to work this morning. I have never come to work on psychedelics or amphetamines or anything more than like one joint, if that, and like, who doesn’t, you know? Never mind, please forget I said that last sentence fragment. If you have to fire me due to some technicality, I just want you to know that I have loved working here for both you and your dad and both of you will always mean the world to me and you are my style icon which is something I never told you like I really look up to you and ugh fuck why am I crying?”

Jonathan reached up to wipe his eyes just as Tan slowly turned around and made his way over to Jonathan, one careful step at a time. “Jonathan, I’m going to ask you to do something for me and I want it to never leave this office.”

“Anything,” he said, meaning it.

Tan didn’t say anything, he just reached out and put his arms around Jonathan’s midsection. He awkwardly leaned the top half of his torso in as well, his head and poufy silver hair coming toward Jonathan’s shoulder, but not quite touching it, hovering just above contact. His boney pelvis was still a couple of feet away. And there they stood, for about a minute, before Jonathan spoke again.

“Hey, Tan?”

“Yes?”

“Is this your version of a hug?”

“You don’t have to stay in it if you don’t want to.”

“Can I just—show you something?” Jonathan reached his own arms around Tan’s shoulders, bringing him in for full body contact. Tan didn’t melt into the hug or even really respond. “Are you trying to figure out if you like it?”

“Yes.”

“What are you leaning towards?”

“I don’t like it, but I don’t want to leave either.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I heard that,” Jonathan rocked them back and forth just a bit, swaying to a gentle rhythm only the air conditioner could provide. How he wished for some music in that moment. “Prediction: one day, you and I will be so good at hugging each other you will never remember when you couldn’t do it.”

Tan seemed to be thinking very hard about this, finally resting his head on Jonathan’s shoulder. “After this, dear, you need to go home for a bit.”

“Can I puke in the sink first? My stomach didn’t really think the swaying part was cute.”


	7. Bitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *holds out soup bowl* please sir may I have some comments
> 
> enjoy a wee tiny bet of sex   
> and now see in the awkwardness and improper attention to physics and crotches why I don't write it too often in fanfics

“ _Bitter: always a bit unanticipated. Coffee, chocolate, rosemary, citrus rinds, wine. Once, when we were wild, it told us about poison. The mouth still hesitates at each new encounter. We urge it forward, say, Adapt. Now, enjoy it_.”

\- Stephanie Danler, _Sweetbitter_

* * *

It was hard to believe, but in the week following, things quickly settled at Safdi’s with the new additions. Well, it was hard for Tan to believe, and he didn’t bother asking if anyone else believed it.

Lola and Tess were much more open to Jonathan giving them an elaborate hairstyle before sending them out on the floor (thus far, the only obvious duty that differentiated him as a headwaiter from anyone else on the floor staff team) than Papi or Hasan, so Jonathan was thrilled to come in every day with a page he ripped out from Vogue, trying some elaborate braid in their hair.

Priya had never seemed so quietly satisfied after going her first full week without needing to fill in a shift at the last minute, content to make a small path just between the kitchen and the office, only needing to break away from her phone calls and Excel charts to deliver more yogurt starter to Brad.

Claire was a welcome addition to the kitchen, happy to bake or clean or label things without needing to be asked to do so by Tan. She and Brad were like opposing magnets in the kitchen, shifting around to make sure they were never close enough to need eye contact or (heaven forbid, clearly) touch by accident. This struck Tan as odd, and he wanted to ask Antoni what the deal was, but he didn’t want to give Antoni the satisfaction of thinking he knew more about his employees than Tan (even though Tan knew this to be true).

In fact, the hardest thing about the whole endeavor was that Antoni was always there now. Even if he wasn’t doing anything in particular, there he was, obviously being careful not to fully step on Tan’s toes, which was almost more annoying than if he just tried to mutiny.

He would bop around the kitchen, sampling everything, hugging Claire, and chatting up Brad about the best butchers in the area. He loved to distract Priya by getting her full opinion on which farmer’s market had the best spice assortment. And of course, he was always trying to chat up Tan—on Tuesday about modifying the standard cuisine of Safdi’s just a bit to accommodate a seasonal vegetable, on Wednesday about seeking a more modern flavor profile, on Thursday about a possible Mediterranean-feel tile backsplash for the walls, so on and so forth.

Tan made it a point to ignore him, usually saying something like that if Antoni wanted to know what to change, he could go ask the guests what they thought. Too Canadian-polite to do this, Antoni then always shut his mouth and sat on the couch in Tan’s office, brooding while he flipped through a New Yorker. This would last ten minutes before he got up to find someone else to bother, something in the kitchen to sample.

If the waiters seemed a little too busy, Antoni would reach for the pitcher of water or hot plate in their hands, putting a nice warm hand on the waiter’s shoulders and saying something like, “I got this! You grab a seltzer. I just brought in a fresh case of La Croix. It’s by the kitchen door. Pamplemousse, too. That’s the best flavor!” Lola and Tess seemed to expect this, grateful for breaks, which made Tan gag. Jonathan also jumped at the chance to dump a table on Antoni for the opportunity to check on his hair or use a blotting paper on his face (the traitor).

Antoni only tried it with Papi twice, giving up after being met the first time with stony silence, and the second time with an eye roll so severe you could hear it. He tried it on Hasan only once-- Hasan said, “Oh, for sure! It’s not the first time a white guy took the food right out of my hands.” Antoni blushed so hard it looked like it physically hurt, and hid in the office for the rest of the night. Tan laughed so hard he had to force himself to stop, as laughter was aggravating his stomachaches lately.

But laughter or no laughter, his stomach was bothering him that Saturday afternoon, the first Saturday after the new hires arrived. Priya was out in the kitchen, talking yogurt with Brad (the two of them could go on about it for hours). Saturday afternoons were when Bobby Berk’s reviews usually went up, and Tan had been sitting, staring at his profile on the food blog for half an hour. So why didn’t he see it? Was the website not registering in his insistent Refresh clicks? In fact, was he slowing it down somehow by using Refresh constantly? The thought was terrifying, but not enough to tear his eyes away from the computer screen for more than a second at a time.

The only other thing he could bring himself to look at was the door. Each day prior, he would hear Antoni gabbing about something with someone just before he knocked twice and came in to present Tan with some new idea and his biceps at the same time. Usually by 2:00pm. But now it was 3:00 and there was no sign of him yet. This wasn’t helping Tan’s stomach at all. To say he was queasy was an understatement. 

Of course, it had nothing to do with wanting to SEE Antoni, and everything to do with how annoying it was that the guy couldn’t even keep up with a routine.

Tan ducked his head out the office door. “Has anyone seen Antoni?”

“Not since yesterday,” Priya said, stirring some granola into a bowl of yogurt bigger than her head. “Why? Do you miss him?”

“Please. Hard to miss someone who’s around all the goddamn time.”

“Like you don’t enjoy it.”

“I don’t. Trust me.”

She sighed, knowing the argument was over, but a faint smile stayed on her red lips. “I always trust you, Tan.”

“Comin’ soon, I hope. Supposeta to bring me some goodies from the ol’ Union Square F.M.” Brad said, fixing his own bowl, also bigger than his head, which was really saying something for Brad.

Tan nodded. “That’s so interesting, Brad, because I’m pretty sure I’ve equipped you well enough to buy whatever produce you need.”

“Well yeh but apparently he’s got some mushroom guy. Gonna get me some under-the-table fungus.”

“I have no clue what that means. Please don’t give our guests anything illegal..” Tan went back into the office. Not five minutes later and thirty Refresh clicks later, Tan could hear Antoni’s chipper greetings to everyone in the kitchen, going on about how much he was looking forward to truffle season. What nerve—not only was Antoni later than usual, but he didn’t seem to think Tan was the first one he should talk to about fresh produce.

Not that it mattered! Not that Tan would include Antoni’s produce on his menu! But still! The nerve!

Antoni knocked twice on the door. Tan pressed the refresh button again, calling out, “I’m busy.”

“I’ll be quick, it’s just one thing,” Antoni let himself in. He marched up to Tan’s desk, the smell of sunshine and John Varvatos cologne following him, and reached into his reusable tote bag. It advertised McNally Jackson Independent Bookstore and Antoni seemed to be making a huge effort to make the logo face out. Tan rolled his eyes and kept them on the ceiling until Antoni found what he was looking for. “Aha… here we are. The most perfect little orb of flavor in the world. Such variances in flavor and texture. And in this season… God, I can’t even!”

Tan looked up, expecting Antoni to be holding a ball of pure gold, or the finest chocolate in the world, or at least a cream puff or something. But he wasn’t holding up anything expensive-looking. He was just holding up a peach.

Antoni caught the curiosity on Tan’s face. “Have you ever had one of these?”

Tan rolled his eyes once again, his eyebrows straining from the repeated movement. But he didn’t speak right away. Because he just realized, right then, no, he hadn’t. Peaches weren’t really a thing in his house growing up. Why would they be? His parents struggled without having to worry about things like fresh, seasonal fruit. Most of the food they ate was restaurant leftovers. Still, Tan said, “Of course I’ve had a peach you moron.”

Antoni made a little face with his eyes wide. “Well. Okay then. So hear me out.”

“God, what.”

“What if we took a look at the dessert menu and—”

“Gulab juman and kheer sell fine, thanks. No place for peaches.” But even as Tan said it, he doubted it a little bit. Some color might do the dishes good. “But, by all means, give me your little pitch.”

Antoni wasn’t expecting that. His eyes lit up, and Tan couldn’t help but smile a bit as he went on for the next moment, spinning the peach tenderly in his hands as he spoke. “The syrup for your gulab is out of the world. Really, I swear I’ve eaten my weight in it this week. But just for the rest of the summer, if you added just some fresh peach juice to the syrup, it’ll put this super seasonal, very mild spin on it. And you’ll be the only guy out here reinventing the gulab juman! It’s a win-win.” He put the peach on Tan’s desk, brushing his hand against Tan, who pulled it away. “Now, if you’re not down to mess with something that isn’t broken—which I totally get!—maybe, just maybe, if you let me tinker with Claire’s phyllo dough, add some warm spices your menu already includes, cardamom or caraway maybe, you can have a special little Safdi’s tart. A whole new dessert. Temporary, of course, just for the rest of summer, maybe. But of course, I want to hear your input. Is there anything you think the dessert menu needs?”

He wasn’t ready for a question, content to watch Antoni go on and on about peaches, handling fruit like crystal balls, his mouth a gallery of crooked smiles. “Needs? Like… well, no. There’s nothing it _needs_. Well… maybe another part of the menu… never mind.”

“Wait, what is it? What other part of the menu?”

“I suppose it’s been a while since we had a new sauce in the mix. Perhaps fruit could complement that?” Tan didn’t plan on telling Antoni any weaknesses, but it just occurred to him that a project would be a good way to keep the guy occupied.

“YES! I would love to brainstorm some new things for you! Like, a peach and mango salsa or maybe it would fit better here to have a chutney with chilis in it too, or… or… I’ll go ask Claire what she thinks.” He popped up off the couch, taking his mist of cologne with him. It was a very nice cologne and Tan was a little sad it was leaving.

“Wait, Antoni…” He reached out for Antoni’s soft white tee (with something that was obviously supposed to be for a band Tan never heard of). “Start with Brad. He’s engineered my other sauces. He’ll be hurt if we don’t rope him in.”

“Okay, but I could just ask both of them?”

“Is that wise?”

“Getting the input of two very different but incredibly capable chefs with killer palates? Yeah… I’d say that’s wise?”

“Well, they don’t seem to get along, do they?”

“Yeah, I’m guessing there’s more than a little history there. But nothing forms a stronger bond than a bit of invention in the kitchen. That’s what cooking exists for, doesn’t it? Nourishing us, body and soul.”

Tan resisted another eye roll. Antoni was finally serving a purpose, and he didn’t want to ruin it. “That’s a very romantic idea, but I’m pretty sure cooking was originally developed just to make food that didn’t kill us in the process of eating it.”

“That makes sense, but what can I say? I guess I’m just full of romantic ideas.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“I guess, but you’re still holding my shirt.”

Tan let go like it burned him. He noticed the sleeve of the tee was a little stretched out now. No great loss—Antoni should really look into button-downs. “Antoni, this has been nice, but I must get back to work.” He pushed himself up off the couch.

“Back to work or back to refreshing Bobby Berk’s blog?”

Tan reeled back, falling back to the couch. “How did you know?”

“I was doing the same for the last hour, and I just sort of sensed that energy. Also it’s open on your computer.”

Tan sighed and went back to his computer chair. He hit Refresh twice.

“Maybe he’s taking this weekend off.”

“Of course he would do that after it’s my restaurant he visited. Do you know that I haven’t eaten all day? I’ve been thinking about this too much to be able to eat. I drank coffee, that’s it.”

“I’m not so sure that’s good for your stomach.”

“Well, there was some cream in it. So there’s one food group, at least.”

Antoni laughed, and it was purely delightful, a strange but endearing halting half-laugh half-gasp. Tan was grateful he was facing the computer screen, away from Antoni, lest he see the smile Tan couldn’t quite catch in time. “That peach is for you then. As soon as you’re feeling better.” Antoni looked at Tan for a few seconds more, his gaze palpable on the back of Tan’s head, then left the office.

Tan stared at the peach. What fascinated Antoni about it so much? Sure, fruit was good, but if Tan was going to get dessert outside of his restaurant (and he did, often), it would be something decadent like cheesecake or tiramisu. Not a peach. Still, he thought, there must be something to it. He rolled the fuzzy fruit in his hand, enjoying how it felt on his skin. The fuzz was almost prickly, but not quite. The flesh had give to it, but was nowhere near mushy. The idea of juices getting everywhere on his desk increased his nausea, but Tan still felt tempted to try it.

What he would give to have anyone looking at him the way Antoni looked at a peach.

And maybe, just a little bit, he wondered what it was like for Antoni to be the one who looked at him that way.

Not because he wanted the guy’s attention or approval or anything. But just because Tan wondered if someone ever viewed _him_ the way Antoni viewed food. Not just there, not just a necessary evil, but something that could be relished. He wanted to nourish someone.

As if karma heard him, Tan got a text message.

From Rob.

He whirled away from the computer, and his stomach lurched a little, so he took a quick seat (more of a collapse, really) on the couch. He lay on his back, curling up into a ball to protect himself, and then took a deep breath and opened the text.

_Hey, I’m really sorry I just sort of dropped off the face of the earth there. Can I buy you dinner tonight and we can talk about it in person?_

Before he could stop himself, he started typing out five different variants of the word “Yes.” But before he could send it, he remembered something that he didn’t have to _remember_ for years, because it was always in the front of his brain—he couldn’t go out. He had a restaurant to run.

No. It would have to run itself. This was a matter of love. This man was Tan’s one last shot at true love for the rest of the life. He was the only one who fit everything Tan was looking for, and then some. Rob was hardworking, independent, well-mannered, interesting, intelligent, and top it all off—blonde.

Tan went out into the kitchen, looking for Priya to give marching orders to, but finding only Brad and Claire, somehow working at the same counter (he was filling samosas and she was chopping spinach for saag dishes) but pivoted fully away from the other. They wouldn’t be any help, so Tan went out into the floor. Jonathan was rolling silverware into napkins, spending far too much time perfecting the creases. Tan sat in front of him.

Jonathan looked up at him with his puppy dog eyes. His appearance was the opposite of his little high episode the other day—his mustache was curled with perfect symmetry, his skin was glowing, and his hair gleaming. Right away, Jonathan stopped rolling items, tucking his hands into his lap, looking into Tan’s eyes for marching orders.

“Let’s say, I was going on a date tonight, and it’s a moment I’ve been waiting for. And I needed a little help figuring out what to wear.”

Jonathan came to an entirely new level of life, his entire energy radiating out through his collarbone. He thrust himself upwards, like a marionette pulled by a string in the sternum, possessed, “Tan I have been waiting for this moment my ENTIRE LIFE if my entire life was the last two weeks! I know you and so I know you must have some possibilities already picked out, so tell me the current lineup and we’ll figure out where the missing puzzle pieces are.” He flipped his hair over his shoulder and tied it up into a bun—this required concentration, clearly. “You might need to recap some of your sock inventory.”

“Well, I have my linen pantsuit.”

“Right, the ivory one. Wear it with a black button down. Dig out those copper flats. It’s a little too formal, but we’ll make it work. Undo a couple buttons. Call it a day. Love that. What else?”

“The pineapple print two piece.”

“Yes. You’re a famous director at Cannes who knows he’s winning Best Picture at the Oscars even though it’s six months away. Very summer. A little too _in_ formal, but depending on the restaurant, it’s whatevs. You wear it with white booties. Boom. Anything else in between?”

“How about he navy floral button down with the vintage high waist cream dress pants?”

“Ding ding ding. The Price is Right. Wheel of Fortune. Double Jeopardy. Insert TV metaphor here. We have a winner. You always wear the Chelsea boots with that. So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

Jonathan paused, now suddenly unsure of his role in all this. “You don’t think the outfit’s right?”

“I know it is, but the idea of wearing it is making me… queasy. What’s going on?”

“Well, Tan, that’s understandable. It doesn’t mean the outfit is wrong, hon. It just means you’re excited, I think.”

When Jonathan reached across the table for Tan’s wrist, Tan pulled it away, burying his arms in his stomach, leaning forward, trying to quell the rolling feelings of slightly painful nausea. “Is it wrong to call and ask what he’s wearing? Like, if he’s wearing a black or dark blue top, then maybe I change the shirt, so we don’t overdo it with the darkness?”

“He could be so lucky to say he’s overdoing deep oceanic tones hand-in-hand with you. Besides, I’ve seen him here every day for the past week. He doesn’t do those tones. He does warm neutrals with an occasional bold accent thrown in. You must have noticed this.”

Tan looked up from where he was folded over. “What now? He’s been in here? And no one told me?!”

Jonathan cringed, aware that he somehow fucked up, but not aware of much more. “What do you mean no one told you? You’ve been talking to him every day. Well, talking to him, then finding a reason to walk away in a huff, and then ignoring that moony way he stares at you from across the room.”

“How do you know how he looks at me?”

“We’re all watching. It’s the ultimate will-they or won’t-they. A sitcom classic.”

Tan kept staring, now also cringing. “… What?”

Jonathan looked around. “What…?”

Across the room, Antoni crouched to help Priya carry in a box of produce delivered, mostly cauliflower. Antoni was wearing a heather gray T-shirt with _The Strokes_ in a fancy typeset, a pair of dark brown dress pants cropped at the ankle, beige sneakers, and a hot pink belt. Warm neutrals with a bold accent. Tan looked back to Jonathan. “You know it’s Rob I’m going on a date with tonight, right?”

“Rob? Rob with the hair Rob?”

“Yes.”

“Rob from Utah Rob?”

“Yes!”

“Rob who ghosted you Rob?”

“Y- no. We’re going to talk about it tonight. It wasn’t just simple ghosting.” Now he found the way to sit up straight. “I was right and you all were wrong. As usual.”

“Tan, I don’t know about that… I mean, I don’t want to burst any bubbles, but, what good explanation could there possibly be for ghosting?”

“It’s not ghosting if he comes back.”

“That sounds kind of like haunting.”

“What do you know?” Tan got up. He ignored his stomach protesting about the sudden movement.

Jonathan, clearly a little hurt, reached for the silverware he had tossed aside. “I know if you wear too much navy, it’ll wash him out. Unless he got some sun since I saw him last. And I sure hope he did, because that was AGES ago.”

Tan walked away from him. “I’ll go ask Priya to cover me tonight. I have to iron my navy shirt. Be good for her.” He was expecting to hear a typical “Whatevs” from Jonathan, but just heard the click-clacking of the silverware.

* * *

There are a few things Tan France wants you to know right now:

  1. There’s a beautiful David Bowie lookalike gay man in the West Village who is a male nurse and has the most wonderful smooth pale skin, the perfect complement to Tan’s food-service-calloused tan hands, and all that is interesting and wonderful, except what you REALLY need to know is that he is very mean.



1a. For instance, he invited a catch like Tan out on a date, only to present conversations that included bullshit sentences like this: “I can tell you’re just really focused on your career right now, and I don’t want to interfere with that. In fact, it’s something I like about you a lot. But we’re in different places, and I would just distract you. I have nothing to offer you in a relationship right now.”

  1. Bluestone has wonderful deals on red wine. If your date buys a bottle, they will give you the next bottle for a major discount, or maybe for free, or maybe Rob paid for the whole thing, Tan wasn’t aware at that point.



2a. Tan is an adult man who is in control of his life and his alcohol consumption who would not have downed an entire bottle and a half of red wine blend in a little more than an hour if it wasn’t for the fact that Rob said that mean unnecessary shit, and also Tan opened a review of Safdi’s from Bobby Berk during the date.

2b. He read it while he went to pee for the second time. The first time he peed, just before that one really mean sentence, back when Tan still thought he was close to getting a high-class dining trophy-husband, it was really just pee. The second time, it was to read the notification for the review that vibrated on his phone. And he didn’t read it word-for-word yet. He opened it up in the ill-lit bathroom with the intention of skimming it for evidence of a success that he could rub in Rob’s face before a triumphant exit. But when he scanned the article, he found terms like “So clean it was impersonal” and “Except for one lovely, personable waiter, staff looked downright scared” and ending with “Just a little bit of music, some Top 40 on cheap speakers (or something, ANYTHING cheap and personable) would have made all the difference in the world.”

2c. That last sentence caused some dry heaving, but no real puke. Tan wondered if puke would have actually made him feel better. But he didn’t have time to wonder before he had to leave the bathroom when some privileged piece of West Village NYU avocado toast shit pounded on the bathroom door so hard that Tan was forced to leave. It took him a solid minute and a half to figure out undoing the lock on the door, and he considered this karmic payback to the world.

  1. It’s important to remember, in sum, that Tan has no boyfriend but is still fabulous, and has not even needed to puke yet, and that though it’s not good, he does have a Bobby Berk review up online. He’s doing very well, and when people are doing very well, they stumble out of the back door of Bluestone without saying goodbye to their ungrateful date, and they head toward home, which is thankfully on the same block.



So anyway, here we are. Tan walked out of Bluestone, or at least, he thinks he did. It might have been more of a run. Or a dance, or a stumble. But the important thing is, he was definitely on his way home-- even a drunk Tan knows his way to Safdi’s. Therefore, he knows his way to his own apartment.

He eventually made it through the front of door of the building. He put all his energy into walking in a perfect straight line, just in case someone from Safdi’s crossed his path. He started up the steps at the same time as he took out his phone. He started a text message—

_I want to know more about the peaches_

And sent it to Antoni. Even as he sent it, he thought to himself, _You uppity white unreasonably hot piece of shit._ He typed that, but his phone got confused with his drunken stumbling and exited out of the messenger app before he got past a _You upp_ text, entering Tan on some bulk produce ordering app.

And as for that one text that sent-- it doesn’t really count as a drunk text, okay? Because he really did want to know more about the peaches. How a fruit got to be so good. How it got to be the apple of Antoni’s eye. And it wasn’t even an apple. It was a peach. How did it do that?

A reply came back, from Antoni: _What do you mean?_

Tan sighed, taking a moment to sit on the fourth step up toward his apartment. Getting part of the way up had seemed to take years. This message was really more of a paragraph, and it also took years. _How do you want to use them? What are your big ideas? How could anyone even have big ideas about a fruit? Fruit are great but they’re no cake… anyway get your flat ass over here to tell me about them_

He didn’t mean to include the flat ass thing. He was just going to say “Get your ass over here” over something but when he did, he couldn’t help but think of Antoni’s butt. It was in the front of his mind. A good butt. Flat but good. Not like a peach. Which wasn’t flat. Anyway, _When’s the soonest you can get here?_ This message trampled all over the “Antoni is typing” indication he got.

He didn’t pay attention to the response, just stuffed his phone in the pocket of his dress pants and focused up again on his path up the stairs. He made it all the way up, just about. At around the third-to-last step up to his apartment, he tripped. He was far enough up the he just bumped his face into his own front door. As soon as he did, he ran his hand over his face. No blood on his hand. So everything was fine. He fumbled for his keys and made his way inside.

Since this was his first time being what he may suspect was “drunk” in years, he expected his apartment to have some sort of special shine to it. It didn’t, though it did seem to be moving. Tan lay carefully on his back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, wishing it would stop spinning, wishing Rob was there, and also wishing that Rob wasn’t anywhere in the world. Also wishing for a perfectly tailored velvet suit in a color like magenta, but that wasn’t urgent.

After an undiscernible amount of time fantasizing his way through the Met Gala on his ceiling, Tan’s phone buzzed again, then there was a knock at the door. Tan ignored his phone and got up to answer the door. He opened it.

It was Antoni. He looked just about the same as he did at the restaurant earlier, but he added a leather jacket to the look, and had obviously ran a comb through his hair, perhaps one times too many. Tan stared at it. It was so sculpted it look like porcelain.

Antoni followed Tan’s eyes. “Oh no. I knew I shouldn’t have done any more gel.”

Then Antoni reached up to touch it self-consciously. This was terrible, because Tan wanted to be the one to destroy perfection.

He reached up and pulled Antoni by the leather lapel into the apartment. Antoni started to say something, but Tan kissed him before he could.

Antoni was clearly shocked, but then closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss. He reached over with his arm, fumbling around until he was able to shut the front door, then wrapped his arms around Tan’s midsection. Antoni tasted like whiskey, which Tan thanked the heavens for, since then he wouldn’t be judged for needing a drink before initiating a kiss. And if he drank straight from the bottle, he counted it as one drink.

Antoni started to try to lift Tan up by his narrow hips, but the space was a bit too cramped, and Tan was a bit too tipsy. So they just made a few little loop-de-loops and semi-circles around Tan’s foyer and living room until they hit the hallway and ended up against the bedroom door.

Tan reached behind Antoni’s warm body for the bedroom doorknob. He missed, and pretended this was intentional for dramatic tension, but really he needed to catch his breath for a second. “Did you bring—”

“Oh yeah,” Antoni reached into the pocket of his leather jacket.

Tan was expecting a condom, but Antoni brought out a peach.

Tan took the peach and threw it somewhere into the living room. He either didn’t hear any “splat” or didn’t care enough to hear it. He pushed himself and Antoni into his dark bedroom.

Tan was a little aware of the disarray he was causing. Both of their shirts were soon thrown to the floor, piece by piece, unfolded. His clean white sheets rumpling around them. They were lit only by the hallway light leaking in through the crack in the door. When his mouth opened on Antoni’s for either the third or fifth or eleventh time, their teeth clicked together, which was never a problem Tan encountered before. Maybe he even tasted a little blood, which normally would disgust him, but tonight he didn’t care.

Tan had never not covered his tracks like this—leaving so many messes in his wake, doors left open, furniture tilted, lights on, bruises forming. And yet, he never felt so free. When would he ever be able to have this little authority again? Still, something tugged in the back of his brain, and he didn’t know what it was, until Antoni pulled back and said,

“Are you drunk?”

This wasn’t the question he was expecting. For the first time since the doorway, Tan pulled back to look at Antoni. He looked way too good, flush cheeks, mouth hanging open, dark pink lips, hair mussed. “Why are you asking me that?”

“I just… I’m not and I didn’t want to—I mean, we didn’t discuss this before. So I just wanted to make sure that you were, you know, all there. For the first time we did this, at least, I just want it to be… right, and make sure you… want it. For real.”

Between the fact that the answer to the first question was indeed a yes, and Antoni had to start and stop that paragraph a million times, Tan had to sit back for a minute and think about what was said. He reached up to fix his hair, horrified to find it was losing some of its sheen and height, and yes, he can tell just by touching it. “Are you saying you don’t want to have sex if I’m drunk?”

“Well, I _want_ to, but not if you’re drunk because that’s… not right.”

“I’m not DRUNK, Antoni. I had some wine, but I’m not…” He trailed off, not actually sure if he was drunk or not anymore. His hand had drifted down from his hair to his face, where he could barely feel his own hand reaching around his features. Was that the alcohol or the kissing? Or something else?

Antoni was watching this, his features shifting into amusement. “This might be a fucked-up thing to say because we won’t even get to second base tonight, but… You look really beautiful right now.”

Tan’s hands left his face and fell into his lap. He was just admiring how Antoni looked, and now he was told he was beautiful? Of course, he knew he was, but usually he thought of this only when given at least an hour to perfect it, like he did every morning, and just before his ill-fated date with Rob. Not when he had gone through God knows how many glasses of port in an hour or so.

Antoni kept going. “I didn’t even know your hair was naturally curly.”

This turned everything around. It wasn’t exciting anymore. And Antoni in his bed wasn’t appealing. It was nauseating. Tan was suddenly aware of all the wine he just drank in a whole new way. He got up, steadying himself on his white bed, aware of so much. Aware of how not cushy his bed was for a bed. Aware of Antoni reaching out his nice strong hand to help. Aware of how he did not have a boyfriend at this moment in time. Aware of how he should, but he knew it was NOT supposed to be Antoni, even though the wine prevented him from remembering why.

“Could you do me a favor?” Tan muttered, also now acutely aware of how much spit was in his mouth.

“Anything.”

Tan was going to say next, “Leave,” but instead, he gestured for the trash can in the corner of his room. Antoni got it to him just in time.

For the next half hour or so, Tan was painfully aware of too many things—how badly his throat was burning, how nice in comparison it felt to have Antoni’s hand rubbing his back. How what he was tasting was bitter for some reason, like nothing he had tasted before. How suddenly tired he was, and how much he felt like crying, and how as he fell asleep, Antoni hadn’t left his bed yet, and how much this felt, for some reason, right.


	8. Chop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gone for a month which is like, I know, my bad, but also the  
> world was kind of   
> on fire and it still kind of is so I've been like  
> dealing with that

" _The cutting hand, which grips the knife, has the star turn, but the other hand is an important supporting player. That helping hand holds, nudges and stabilizes the ingredient being cut, to maximize safety and efficiency._

_For the knife grip used by most chefs, the palm of the hand chokes up on the handle, while the thumb and index finger grip the top of the blade. This is different from how many home cooks hold a knife, by wrapping the entire hand around the handle. The chef’s grip has evolved that way for a reason: it’s the most efficient way to use the weight of the knife, the sharpness of its blade, and the strength of your arms, which makes for the easiest cutting._

_The ideal position for the helping hand is called the bear claw, with the fingertips curled under and knuckles pressing down on the ingredient to keep it from rolling or sliding. It may feel odd, but it’s the safest place for your fingertips to be in relation to the cutting blade. Alternatively, bunch your fingertips together and rest the pads on top of the ingredient._

_In a perfect world, while the hand that is holding the knife moves forward and back to cut, the helping hand moves across in even increments, creating perfect slices. (Do not despair; this takes practice, and is hardly a requirement for home cooks.)_

_Overall, the best way to handle a knife is the way that feels safest to you._ "

\- Julia Moskin, "Basic Knife Skills" in the New York Times

* * *

_Tan stood with two towels on his hands, holding a large pot of rice. Steam escaped out the top, where he had placed an upside down plate. “I’m ready.”_

_“Are you sure?” his father asked, not looking up from his paperwork._

_“Father! I told you! I know how to make this! I’ve watched you a million times! I’m ready.”_

_“You are never ready,” now he peered over his thick black-rimmed glasses at Tan. It was hard to discern what was under his thick mustache, but when it came to Tan’s cooking, it was never a smile. “I don’t know what to see it’s in that pot to know it’s not tahdig.”_

_“I’ll show you!” He flipped the pot, keeping the plate on, and placed it on the table. With a deep breath, he removed the pot, expecting a beautiful, solid pilaf of rice with a golden crust on top._

_And he got what he expected._

_He knew he would look like a child in front of his father, but he didn’t care—Tan jumped up and down, waving his arms about, laughing. “I did it! I did it!! You said I couldn’t but I did!”_

_His father’s expression was more imperceptible than ever, if possible. “I knew you could. Do you know how I knew?”_

_Now Tan stopped jumping. He froze. He knew this needed his utmost attention. Was it going to be the first praise he received from his father since he stopped bringing home all A’s in school? The first culinary praise he would EVER receive from the man?_

_He stepped up out of his chair and away from the family kitchen table. Though he was never much taller than Tan, he seemed to tower above him. “Because this is women’s work. And you are nothing more than that. Worse, in fact. You are confused. You ARE a confusion.”_

_If Tan could form any words at all, he’d ask, “What?” but his father continued ripping at him._

_“A women’s worth as a wife is determined by her tahdig. You will never bring me a wife, so you bring me this instead, and you think it is sufficient? You think you will bring this family anything except shame and humiliation? You are an ABOMINATION!”_

_On the last word, the man burst into flames._

“FIRE!” Tan shot up in bed. He stumbled for the glass of water on the side table. It spilled all over the polished hardwood floor. He jumped out of bed into the puddle. His feet almost slipped out from under him. “Fire, YOU'RE ON FIRE! I can help I can help I can help!”

“Fire?! Fire, where?!” Antoni shot up too, jumping out on the other side of Tan’s bed. “Tan! Where is there a fire?”

Tan started to say something but lost track between his halting breaths.

“There’s no—oh… There’s no fire! Thank god.” Antoni walked over to Tan. “Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?” He put a warm hand on Tan's back.

Everything was sinking in now. Too much was sinking in. He was awake. His father was not burning. He did not make rice correctly. There was no tahdig. His father was gone. Antoni was there. Antoni was there from the night before. Antoni was there from the night before wearing nothing but a tight pair of white briefs.

Each of these realizations made his breath quicken. Tan leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. He was wearing some random pair of sweatpants. With a HOLE in the outside seam. In FRONT of Antoni. Who was there FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE.

“Breathe, Tan. It’s okay. I’m here.” Antoni gently guided him to sit on the edge of the bed. Tan wanted to respond that nothing was okay and that he really couldn’t breathe, and if Antoni knew anything then he could see that, but all he could focus on was the floor and Antoni’s hand rubbing his back. He could also sort of hear Antoni’s voice saying things about Tan not dying, Tan being safe, and again, It’s okay. None of those things seemed plausible until Tan finally caught his breath after some amount of time (could have been a few seconds, could have been a few hours, he wasn’t sure).

Antoni was rubbing the back of his neck now. Tan sat up and tilted his head away from Antoni's hand. Antoni seemed unfazed. “Do you get panic attacks often?”

“No. That wasn’t what it was. I just couldn’t catch my breath. Weird dream. That’s all.”

“That… seems like a panic attack.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you… yelling about fire and all that.”

“Yeah, that was kind of scary, but I understand what happened. And I understand the anxiety you’re feeling.”

Tan didn’t know what anxiety Antoni thought he was understanding, but he chose not to address it. “Lord, what time is it? We should be ready to head downstairs in the next half hour.” He went straight for his closet.

Antoni said, “Wow, your closet is so organized!”

“It helps me stay quick. I always know what I'm looking for.” Tan reached up and picked a black pinstripe button down and a pair of white dress pants.

“How do you do that?”

“Be sure of myself?”

“Well, yes. But also know how to dress yourself in things that are actually nice and classy. I’d like to wear fewer T-shirts and more… anything else.”

Tan looked over at Antoni on the bed, leaning back on his elbows, a sliver of abs showing between his white tee and underwear. It was hard to imagine a toned, tanned boy like him being insecure about his looks.

Antoni grinned. “What?”

“Nothing, just…” Tan held the clothes in front of his own body by the hangers. “A little hard to change with you sitting here.”

Antoni seemed to need a few seconds to comprehend that. “Right. I’ll just… do you mind if I use your shower again?”

“Sure.” Anything to get the guy up and out of there. “I’m going to make coffee. If you want some.” _Hopefully to-go_ , Tan thought, wondering if he had one of those ugly travel mugs in the kitchen.

“I was going to pick up some from the place a couple doors down. I can get you something if you’d like.”

This guy and his niceness. For the first time in his life, Tan missed the days when he would bring home a guy and they would do anything to leave before sunrise. “I’ll have one from there as well, just an iced coffee with sugar. Large.”

“Large?”

“Yes, is that okay?”

Antoni had made his way over to the doorway, and now hung back, leaning on the doorframe. “Of course. It’s just a lot of coffee, that’s all. But I get it, I feel a little hungover too. And I don't even really drink anymore. Weird, huh?”

Tan _did_ think that was weird, especially since he thought Antoni tasted like whiskey last night. Maybe that was just the way he tasted. The idea was strange and... enticing. Tan tried to imagine what else the taste could be. He cycled through spices in his head. He pictured their mouths together. He wondered what Antoni thought he tasted like.

Antoni was staring at Tan, his head cocked to the side. “Can I get you something to eat too?”

“I, what? Like-- I mean, no.”

“… No? Nothing?”

“Antoni, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” On that note, Tan went over to his mirror and made a show of beginning to slip off his sweatpants. “Please go ahead and take your shower before you’re late for work.”

Antoni watched him for a moment, which Tan looked away from before he blushed. Just as he did, he heard Antoni go into the bathroom. As he waited a few more seconds, he felt queasiness and a familiar acidy burn at the pit of his throat. Through sheer force of will, Tan waited until he heard the water come on, then ran into the kitchen and started spitting in his sink.

After a minute or so of this with no real result, he simply turned around and put the coffee pot on, ignoring more waves of nausea—which he was an expert at by now. He returned to getting dressed and fixing his hair and managed to do this in quick enough time that he was out the door before Antoni had even finished showering, thanking the heavens for his grooming skills.

As soon as Tan walked into the restaurant with his cup of coffee, Jonathan galloped across the room toward him. Tan didn’t stop on his way to the kitchen, so Jonathan clutched Tan’s bicep and skipped beside him. “You’re late! The night after you left early! That can only mean one thing!”

“And what would that be?” Tan was thrown off balance by the clutching, since Jonathan was a whole head taller than Tan, but it didn’t stop him from picking up a napkin from a center table on his way. “You call that folded, Jonathan?”

Jonathan ignored the napkin comment. “You know my feelings on Rob are neutral at best, but I still want to hear every single detail.”

“It went perfectly fine, dear,” Tan tried to detangle himself from Jonathan once he came up to his office, but Jonathan held fast so hard that Tan was nearly thrown backwards.

“Wait. No it didn’t. No it did not go fine.” Jonathan now kept one hand on Tan’s bicep and one on his other shoulder, turning Tan around to look him in the face. “You’re like, obsessed with this Rob guy. If the date went well after he didn’t talk to you for so long, you’d be like, walking on sunshine, or clouds, or hairspray or whatever beautiful bosses walk on. What happened? What did he do?”

“Jonathan, I don’t want to talk about it,” Tan put his hands on Jonathan’s. “I appreciate you. It went fine. Nothing to note. We just talked. That’s all.” He had a feeling it was obvious he was lying, but if you give Jonathan Van Ness a gossip inch, he’ll take an interrogation mile.

“Talked about WHAT?” Jonathan tried as Tan opened the door to his office. “If he wasn’t talking about how sorry he was, or how much he missed you, or how he’s going to change, then I would say that’s a bad talk, which makes it a bad date if that’s all you did. If someone doesn’t recognize that you’re a fucking _queen_ of queens then he’s bad at dating.” Tan was grateful he was facing away, since something about Jonathan’s words was making tears prick his eyes. “You don’t want to like, debrief about this at all?”

“No, I don’t. There’s nothing to debrief about.”

When Tan shut the office door behind him, he still heard Jonathan through the door making a half-dozen _Tsk-_ type noises before he walked away. Tan didn’t know what they meant, so he reached for someone who would speak to him in a way he understood—Priya. She was tapping away on some new iPad, but looked up in a start when Tan grabbed her button-down-clad arm (looking up “in a start” for his very calm Priya means opening her eyes to about 70% openness). “Tell me some sort of problem I can fix right now.”

She looked down at his hand, but didn’t bother wriggling her arm free. “Well… our inbox still has five unread emails… but I’m working on that right now.”

“Maybe I can work on that.”

“I’m on it, Tan.”

“Who emailed?”

She sighed and gave one big tap on the screen. “Two emails from our local congressmen trying to say they know the most about small business…

“I know more than them.”

“I know that, Tan… one from a wholesale produce place in Queens…”

“I don’t do Queens.”

“I _know_ so I already deleted it… one from somewhere called Kiwi Cuisine Company asking to call you… does that sound familiar?”

“No, spam. Delete.”

“And one from Ben Levine.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“That’s Antoni’s partner in The Gathering. He’s been wanting to meet with you for some time, says he sent texts—”

“Did you open the email addressed to me?”

“Well… I mean, sorry, I didn’t know it was just for you, it was the general inbox.” But she didn’t sound or look very sorry, maintaining calm eye contact with Tan. “I was cleaning it out just to take some things off your plate.”

“There’s not much on my plate with Antoni running around interfering with things.”

“Can I talk to you about that?”

“Is it about a way to get him out?”

“No, it’s just—look, he’s actually really helpful, and he tries so hard, but you just seem to be kinda irked by it, more than usual even.”

“So you agree his time has come to an end.”

“No, actually, I was more thinking…” she trailed off, then turned herself and her Target Missoni-collection separates back to the computer. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s helpful. We can talk about it another time.”

“Priya.”

“It’s just—every time I say something that’s a suggestion I’m worried you’re going to fire me.”

“I promise not to.”

“Have you ever taken a vacation?”

“I should not have promised,” Tan hurled himself out of her vicinity, into the kitchen. Now Priya believed she was in charge of the inbox AND his schedule? He was desperate to hear someone, anyone treat him like he was in charge. Brad calling him _chief_ would have to do. He would do anything the big lug wanted. He would get rid of that Claire person. Sure, Antoni would be devastated, but if Antoni left, two birds, one stone, right?

 _Of course, right,_ Tan said to himself, as his stomach growled in protest at the visual of Antoni walking out.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, the first thing he saw was Brad leaning against his steel prep counter, eating his usual oversized bowl of homemade yogurt. Claire was with him. Not only that, but she was near him. Laughing. Also eating yogurt. They were sharing laughs _and_ yogurt. Brad made some sort of utterance Tan couldn’t hear, complete with a wide gesture using his bowl, and Claire laughed so hard she tilted her head back. Then he took out his phone and showed her something on it. They watched the little screen together, transfixed. He leaned down toward her to match her height. It was adorable.

Tan watched them watching the phone, trying to figure out what had changed, and when that happened. As of last night, when he left work, they still refused to look each other in the eye or come within arm’s length of each other. “Wait… you two?”

Brad’s head popped up first. “Oh, hi chief! You wanna see this video of Bobby Berk talk about his favorite coffee makers?”

Claire tapped Brad’s arm. “No. He doesn’t want to see that.”

“Why not?”

“Never mind, I’ll tell you later, let’s just…” Now she turned to Tan. “We were just taking a breakfast break, but we’ll get back to prep work soon.”

Tan nodded. “See that you do.”

“We’ll get to it right now, actually.”

“Good, and watch your tone.”

“Of course, sorry,” she said instead of talking back or asking what exactly kind of tone she needed to watch. Good, since Tan wouldn’t have known what to say if she did ask. The conversation just seemed incomplete without it. Though it still seemed like he should say _something_ else. He didn’t know what to do other than stand there and watch them resume peeling and chopping huge piles of vegetables. Over the next couple minutes, he stood there, arms crossed, as Claire and Brad chopped and peeled, and whispered and giggled. They were so content to stand side by side that they didn’t even seem to mind his staring.

He felt the back of his throat burn and turned to go into the seating area of the restaurant. Just as he left, Antoni nearly ran into him. Tan avoided eye contact, with him but his heartrate doubled just looking at Antoni’s neck. “Hey, Tan, I brought you a coffee… and a scone… and I was wondering if there was somewhere we could talk for a minute?”

“Yes, absolutely, because I need to talk to you too,” He led Antoni toward the interior corner table in front of the kitchen.

Antoni followed him, saying, “That’s a big relief to hear you say that because I was worried you might want to avoid talking to me for some reason. Not that I wouldn’t understand if you weren’t nervous or something, but I just, I don’t know. I’m happy to talk to you. And I want to start by saying that if I said or did anything last night that offended you, that wasn’t—”

“What’s the deal with Brad and Claire?” Tan interrupted, grabbing his iced coffee as he plopped down in the chair.

“What… what do you mean? Are they fighting again?” Antoni hadn’t sat down yet, and he whirled around to try to peek into the kitchen door. “I could have sworn everything was fine where we left off last night!”

“Left off last night? Left what off?”

“Well…” Antoni peered through the window of the kitchen door for a moment, then came back over to Tan’s table. “Last night, just after you went left early, I spent some extra time in the kitchen, and I sensed there was a lot of tension between those two that wasn’t going to get better without some honest discussion. And not during a dinner service, because it’s just too hectic. So once our last guest was out the door and the plates were in the dishwasher, I made a pitcher of quick sangria, I invited them to sit down with me, and we hashed it out.”

“Hashed what out exactly?”

“It turned out it was all just a miscommunication. They were best friends at their former workplace, and they both had to leave at around the same time for different reasons. They each assumed the other wouldn’t want to be involved in some long, drawn-out goodbye-fest, but that’s actually what they both wanted. And then both of them were hurt the other never said goodbye. So neither reached out, and neither was happy.”

“So… all that hubbub and they were just _friends_ the entire time?” Tan could have sworn that for all the yelling and drama on the day he met Claire, a sordid romance of some kind had to be at fault. He sipped his coffee as he thought about it, and before he knew it, he was halfway done.

Antoni stared at the coffee as it drained. “Don’t you think friendship is important enough to get upset when it ends the way it shouldn’t?”

“I suppose I just have bigger things to worry about.”

“It was a big thing to them.”

Tan looked up into Antoni’s big brown eyes, expecting something judgmental from that statement, but all he saw was warmth and worried eyebrows. “It sounds like you would know better than I do.”

“Brad’s been working here for a couple years. I’m sure you know him well at this point, and you understand how passionate he can get.”

“I don’t really get close to my employees like you do.”

“Right, well, anyway…” Antoni’s tone dripped with _Yeah, I noticed!_ But he was polite enough not to say it out loud. Tan sort of wished he did so he had an excuse to get mad at him. “Thanks for taking the time to sit with me now before the lunch crowd comes… I just wanted to sort of… touch base with you, I guess, about last night.”

Tan wondered why they need a “touch base” if they didn’t touch many bases at all. The exact specifics of what he and Antoni did were a blur, but at no point in the blur were any dicks touched, and Tan considered himself to be a kind of all-or-nothing guy when it came to sex. He didn’t have time for much else, usually. Except for the first time with Rob. Rob suggested they take things slow, and it was just that— _achingly_ slow, but that satisfying kind of ache, a full evening of exploring each other’s bodies for hours. But before Tan had even cycled through the first two hours’ worth of memories, he remembered that last night, Rob proved himself to be _not_ a nice person after all. And if a guy like Rob could put in so much work into a fake nice guy act, what’s to say Antoni wasn’t doing the same?

“Do you want me to get you another coffee? Or something else?”

Tan had been sucking on ice, staring down Antoni for who knows how long. “No, let’s not waste any more time.”

“Any… _more_ time?”

“Yes, we’ve been sitting here distracting ourselves with workplace gossip. I shouldn’t have started the conversation. My fault. I learned my lesson and now it’s time to get back to work.”

“I don’t know what work needs to get done… the supply orders have been placed, Priya took care of the inbox, prep for lunch is underway…”

“Antoni, in case you forgotten, there’s more to running a restaurant than a small to-do list. We can’t be getting distracted with things like gossip, and friendship, and silly little flings. There’s nothing I see about last night that’s worth talking about a minute longer.”

“Oh... okay.” Antoni turned his tired eyes to the table, blushing a bit. The way his shoulders sagged reminded Tan of the last time Antoni was sitting at that table, just after the fire. Tan realize what he said must have really hurt. That was okay. It was meant to. He needed to keep Antoni at arm’s length. So why did he feel the need to reach out and grab the man’s toned shoulders and pull him back up to his feet?

If Antoni sat there any longer, Tan might have done just that, but Antoni pushed himself up, muttering something about checking on rice, and wandered over to the kitchen.

Tan stared at his empty iced coffee. He felt eyes on him and turned toward the front of the restaurant, where Jonathan, Papi, and Tess peered at him over piles of napkins and cutlery. As soon as Tan looked over, Papi and Tess spun away back towards their duties. But Jonathan just stared back at Tan, sadness visible from across the restaurant, all over his perfectly groomed mustache and eyebrows. Tan was dying to scold them for eavesdropping, but he didn’t want to walk over there and have to avoid Jonathan’s meaningful looks up close. He was also dying to curl up into a ball on the couch in his office, but that would mean crossing paths with Antoni again.

Just when he realized how annoying and anxiety-inducing it was that he felt he had nowhere to go in his own business, Tan heard the front door open, and he felt summoned to stay right where he was. As if someone was hypnotizing him to. And when he looked up, there, walking toward him, was Karamo Brown. It would not have surprised Tan if Karamo had taken up hypnosis at some point.

Karamo waved. “I heard you do breakfast now so I decided to pop over on my way to my next interview.”

“If you heard we do breakfast, you probably heard it wasn’t that good.”

Karamo took a few seconds to look over Tan from his head to his toes, and the empty coffee in front of him with Antoni’s name scrawled on it. He glanced over to where Jonathan was. Tan assumed Karamo and Jonathan were sharing a hefty amount of information through eye contact only. After a few seconds, Karamo’s eyes were back on him. “Tanny… are you a little hungover?”

“I don’t get hungover.”

“Right. Of course you don’t. Do you want to _talk_ about how… hungover you aren’t?”

“No,” Tan said, even as his eyes filled up with tears.

“Got it. No talking.” Karamo wandered over to the waiters’ station, greeted them with a friendliness Tan couldn’t make out but assumed was disgustingly charming, and came back over with two glasses of ice water. “Still no talking?”

Within two minutes, Tan had spilled almost everything to Karamo as he took apart the scone Antoni left on the table, crumb by crumb. The date with Rob that he thought was a next step, when really it was just closure. Bobby’s passive-aggressive review. The nightmare he had, the alarming forms it had been taking for months now, the panic attacks that sometimes followed. And waking up with Antoni in his bed that morning. Tan also made sure to specify that he and Antoni had done nothing together. The only thing he didn’t share was that though they had _done nothing,_ it felt like they did _everything,_ but now he wasn’t sure now how to look Antoni in the eye. After all, Karamo wouldn’t know how to solve that. Who would?

Once he was done speaking, Tan sipped his water, looking at Karamo, who just stared back at him, unblinking. Tan said, “Was none of that interesting enough for you to comment?”

“Of course. All of it was.” Karamo shrugged. “But I’m more interested in hearing what _you_ think of all of that.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Obviously, I’m stressed.”

“You’ve been stressed for years. This is more than stress. I sense a lot of… fear. Which is different.”

Tan clunked the now-empty glass down and looked around for his waiters. “Someone on duty right now needs a little reminder about keeping an eye on the water glasses.”

“Tan, focus. What’s different about now? What is it about everything that happened last night that’s scaring you?”

“I don’t know why I keep trying this with you, Karamo. I think I’m a fairly well-adjusted guy. I’m an immigrant with a successful business and no record of anything crazy like violent crime or drug addiction or too much sex or whatever. So how come when I try to come to you for a bit of advice, it turns into an hour-long meditation?”

“We’ve been here for like five minutes.”

“Talking to you always feels too long.”

Karamo paused for a moment, then, “Said no one ever! I’m a great conversationalist. I’ve literally made a living off it.”

Karamo tried to use a big smile to pass off his tone as jovial, but Tan sensed in Karamo’s furrowed brow that he touched a nerve. He pushed himself up, refolding the napkin neatly. “I need to get back to work.”

“It’s interesting, Tan, how the only real indicator you use to show how well your life is run is how your business is run. And you equate how well a business is run to how _afraid_ people are of you. The only thing that had really threatened that was Antoni and his place. And now he’s here, in your camp, with good intentions, and you still can’t let the guy in. What is it about him that scares you?”

“Nothing. He isn’t scary. And neither are you.” Tan got up from his chair, regretting it right away. For a million reasons. One of them was the sudden look of exhaustion on Karamo’s face. Another was the sharp pain in his stomach when he stood upright. And third (but not least), the chair made a screechy noise on the floor below him. Now on top of everything the floor needed buffing.

“I’m not trying to scare you, Tan, I’m just trying to help. I only ever just want to help.” Karamo rubbed his brow so much he had to take his baseball cap off to continue rubbing into his nonexistent hairline. “There’s a lot I could say about why you’re jumping to the idea that everyone is out to get you, but I need some carbs first. I’m starving.”

“We have not perfected breakfast yet and we do not serve food that’s not up to par. So you can’t eat right now. Please leave.” Tan was walking away now, but walked slowly so he could hear Karamo’s reaction.

Karamo sighed and got up, his chair gently moving away with no screech, which Tan gave silent thanks for. He heard Karamo say, “I’ll be back around this time tomorrow.”

“We won’t have breakfast ready yet.”

“Tan, if you read Bobby’s review carefully, you’d know that he thought the food was amazing.”

Tan waited until he heard the small ding of the front door opening and closing behind Karamo. Again, he felt tears pinch his eyes. He’d have to ask whoever was hosting tomorrow not to let Karamo in. Anyone who made him cry at work should be banned.

Tan darted into the kitchen, aiming for his office. He decided he would send Priya on some made up errand, anything to get some goddamn private time in his own space. As soon as he made it through the kitchen door and turned toward his office , he heard Jonathan’s voice. “Tan, I cannot take you looking this sad. You’re way too pretty for it. Please talk to me about something or—” Tan turned around, ready to really let him have it. As soon as he stopped walking and whipped around, they collided. Jonathan was carrying a few empty wine glasses. Each of them dropped and shattered on the floor, even as Jonathan made acrobatic stumbles to try to catch them. “Oh balls and shit. That’s what I get for trying to be efficient for the first time in my gay life.”

“Mazel tov!” Brad called out without looking up from a cutting board full of onions.

Papi was trailing behind Jonathan with water glasses. He let out a couple Hebrew swears, put his glasses gently on the counter, and muttered something about getting the broom before leaving the kitchen.

And Jonathan dropped to the floor in a crouch to start piling together bigger pieces.

At least, these were all things Tan was pretty sure he was hearing. He didn’t see any of it because his head was tilted back, and his eyes were fixed to the fluorescent ceiling lights. His fists were clenched so tightly they hurt. He gathered strength staring at the colorless ceiling, imagining a colorless world. Then he finally looked down and said,

“Jonathan, you’re fired.”

Jonathan looked up at him from the floor. He let himself absorb this statement, giving himself enough time to make sure his crouch looked great—his legs looking thick and strong in the crouch, his hair falling over his shoulder just so, because he clearly needed to summon every bit of confidence he had to state back, “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, Jonathan you are,” Tan knew his voice sounded shaky, but he couldn’t stop now. “Effectively immediately. As in right now.”

“Why? Because I dropped glasses?”

“No, because you ask wildly unprofessional questions about my personal life, you never tie up your hair when I tell you to, your drug use is affecting your performance, you don't refill waters enough, and for fuck’s sake you _never watch your tone!_ And then after all that, yes, you dropped glasses.”

Jonathan stood up to face him now. His face showed anger, but tears filled his eyes. “Don’t do this.”

Immediately, Tan wanted more than anything to say he was sorry without actually saying it, but before he could think of a way, Jonathan untied his apron. “Fine. You’re the boss.” He lay it on top of the counter and walked out.

The apron was in the way of Brad’s cutting board, and was coming into contact with some onions, but Brad didn’t care—he had ceased chopping. He had been watching the whole exchange. He asked, calmer than Tan had ever heard him, “Tan, are you serious?”

Tan eyed the knife in Brad’s hand. More than ever, he regretted not getting to know Brad better. Because frankly he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with that knife. Tan said, summoning whatever conviction he had left, “Put that down.” 

Brad heard this, then let the gears turn inside his head for a moment. Then his face broke into a laugh. “Whatever you say, chief.” He put his knife down, took off his own apron, and walked past Tan toward the door. At the doorway, he stopped and turned around, looking to Claire, who was tending to trays of naan in the oven, with a bowl of butter in one hand and a brush in the other, eyes purposely fixated on the oven. “Claire, come on. We can’t stay.”

She ignored him and brushed the naan.

He waited another few seconds for her, then said, “You think you know someone!” and left.

Tan sighed. He reached for a pair of disposable gloves and took over Brad’s chopping. He wasn’t facing Claire anymore, but was pretty sure he heard her sniffle a few times. Eventually, Papi came in and swept up the glass in silence. When Tan ran out of onions to chop, he found more.

* * *

Tan schedules his cries.

He had one scheduled for a week later, but given the events of the day, including almost making a fool out of himself by tearing up in front of Karamo, he decided to move it up to that night.

Tan didn’t feel like specifying, he put on a pair of silk navy blue Ralph Lauren pajamas with a pair of slippers that matched the P.J.’s white trim (the perfect Crying Outfit) and set up his laptop on the coffee table. He would normally do this in his bedroom for that extra little bit of privacy, but his bed still smelled a little like Antoni’s cologne, and he was worried that might interfere with the length of the Crying Session (they have strict caps at an hour). Only because Tan wanted a boyfriend in general, of course, not necessarily because it was Anton’s cologne. Of course.

Anyway, after a day of very little control, he wanted to at least control each step of the crying session he was forced to move up. So after he was done with the world’s longest text conversation with Priya, trying to figure out the wording for yet another call for employees, Tan set up his ideal Crying Playlist on his laptop. He also set an alarm for fifty-five minutes from then (allowing a five minute warning to wrap it up). He briefly wondered if he should allow this session to go beyond an hour due to extenuating circumstances, but then he remembered that after an hour, it’s just wallowing, and there’s no time in his schedule for wallowing until retirement.

But just when he finished queuing up a playlist of children getting the golden buzzer on _America’s Got Talent,_ there was a knock on the door. Tan couldn’t think of anyone it could be. Maybe Antoni. His heart raced at the thought-- the Crying Session schedule would be thrown off beyond repair. As he got up and walked toward the door, he heard someone outside the door say, “Oh shit, there’s a doorbell,” and then ring the doorbell a couple times.

He looked through the peephole, but barely had to time to comprehend who it was when he had to open the door over the racket. “Stop ringing that bloody bell, please, Hasan, you brat.”

Hasan’s face broke into a smile far too big for his face when Tan opened the door. “Tan. You look great, dude. Is that a SILK SUIT? What the hell!”

“It’s pajamas, dear. Because it’s nighttime. What do you need at this hour?” Tan stood firm in his doorway as Hasan tried to look over his shoulder, but he could already feel his resolve melting, and knew Hasan was going to spend the night on his couch.

“I’ve been out and I got good news but then I realized it’s also bad news and I wanted to come to tell you right—” He burped. “Away.”

“Hasan… love… have you been drinking?” It was a rhetorical question, as Tan could smell the alcohol from a few feet away.

“Not much. Not much of any one thing. So not much, when you think about… distribution of supply and stuff.”

“How much of each one thing?”

“Only like two glasses of champagne, then like one and a half glasses of wine. Then like two whiskey cokes. Then maybe two beers. Then either one or two somethings. So like not much. Just two of whatever. Not even two wines! So I’m good.”

With each addition of two drinks to this story, Tan could picture an entirely new place where Hasan lay on the ground, vulnerable, injured, and maybe most importantly, unable to do any shifts that week. He heaved a sigh and held his door all the way open for Hasan. “Go right to the couch.”

“No problemo,” Hasan stumbled past Tan, putting his hands all over the walls for support, then on the coffee table. Then he stayed still.

“That’s the coffee table, dear, not the couch.”

“No, I know, but hey, this looks like the exact same kind my mom had.” Hasan bent at a ninety-degree angle over it. “This is like… wood but it’s like… carved.”

“Yes, I know. We got this piece to remind us of home.”

It wasn’t clear if Hasan meant to fall backwards on the couch just so, or if he tried to stand back up and lost his balance, but Tan darted over to help guide him. “You don’t drink often, do you?”

“No… I guess I should, right? Then every time I get good news I wouldn’t get so fucking plastered…” Hasan had let himself be guided into sitting on the couch, but now he pulled his long legs up to curl up on the couch.

Tan sighed, worrying about drunk feet on his couch. “I’ll make some tea.” _I’ll just get him some ice water. Lord, give me patience._

As Tan walked to the kitchen, Hasan called out to him, “You’re making like, chai, right? Like CHAI tea? Not like the English tea that’s all watered down. I mean milked down. Milked up?”

As Tan filled up a glass with ice water and located a couple Tylenols (and Tums from his new jumbo container fresh from Duane Reade), he could hear Hasan repeating “Milked up” and “Milked down” a few times, trying to work it out, then “Milked… sideways,” and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

When Tan came back in and handed the pills to Hasan, he took them without looking or asking about it. He just looked up from where he was slouching on the couch at Tan with his huge dark eyes. “Did you hear me a minute ago? I said ‘chai tea’ like an American. Like, how rude—you let me into your house and I disrespect it by going full Caucasian on you.”

Tan allowed himself to fully laugh. Hasan really was funny, or at least charming enough that you laughed even when he wasn’t. “I grew up in England, but I have a feeling we have the same tastes in tea.”

“Do we?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Well… I’m Indian and you’re Pakistani. Right? You told me that once.”

“There’s a lot of overlap in the cuisine, darling. Drink your water.” He gestured for Hasan to chug, because he had a feeling he knew what the next question was going to be, and he didn’t feel like getting into it this late at night.

But Hasan seemed to speed through the whole glass of water so he could ask the question. “Why do you have an Indian food restaurant instead of a Pakistani one?”

“Let me get you some more water,” Tan said as made his way back to the kitchen. As he got more ice out of the freezer, he looked up at his copper pot collection, thinking of his mother, wondering what she would say. She told him why the family chose that label for Safdi’s, and then instructed him never to tell white people (especially not potential customers) the real reason why. But Hasan was not white or a potential customer. So he called out from the kitchen, “Americans don’t appreciate Pakistani food as well as they appreciate Indian food. Or rather, Americanized Indian food. The point is, they hear ‘India’ and think they understand it, feel safe enough to eat there. They hear an ‘istan’ and they think I’m going to poison their lentils.” He stared into his copper pots, hoping this answer satisfied his mother, wherever she was. Whenever he would speak the way he just did in front of his parents, his father would tell him to watch his tone, and his mother would tell him to listen to his father, but she always had a shadow of smile when he got sassy. He usually saw her face in the shiny rosey-orange surfaces, but today as he looked up into them, he also thought of Antoni. The way he stared at the pans with wide open eyes, admiration shining through.

Life seemed so much easier when he could look at some mundane object like a pair of jeans or a sink of dishes and just think of Rob.

It had taken Hasan a moment to let all that sink in, and now he called out, “What milked-down explanation do you tell the white folks.”

Tan brought out a water for Hasan and a glass of wine for himself. “I say something about there being a lot of overlap in the cuisine and I call them ‘darling’ and then they order chicken tikka extra mild.”

Hasan laughed so loud it echoed across the apartment. “I’m retiring. You should be the comedian.” He curled up into a ball on his side on the couch.

He sat beside Hasan, making sure to be on the head side, not the dirty-drunk-feet side. “What good news did you get?”

“Never mind. You wouldn’t care.”

“Try me.”

“I’m writing for a late night show.”

“That’s wonderful, dear! So all those late shifts for all those auditions and meetings…”

“I told you I was serious!”

“Which show is this?”

“Oh, who cares… they’re all the same…”

“That’s not necessarily true—”

“YEAH it is so don’t pretend like you’re so happy,” but even as he said this with some traces of anger, Hasan pushed the top of his gelled head into Tan’s thigh. “You’re gonna be just like everyone else in our community… mad I’m leaving you for some white guy… mad I’m doing comedy when I could be like a doctor or some shit… SORRY I want to do what I want…” Hasan crossed his arms over his chest, squeezing his eyes shut.

He looked so miserable, squished up so tight, that Tan felt tears prick his eyes for what he hoped was the final time that day (Crying Session had been moved back another day). He was so familiar with this feeling-- succeeding, yet being made to feel inadequate, and wanting to just curl up away from the world. He was dying to tell Hasan that he didn’t feel _any_ of that anger at him leaving, and didn’t even think of anything like needing to hire a replacement until just that moment when Hasan brought up leaving. He was just happy Hasan had finally gotten a job, after countless call-outs for auditions, callbacks, interviews, recordings, and everything in between. He couldn’t think of anyone who ran around so much between shifts. He couldn’t think of anyone who worked harder or deserved it more.

And he had half a mind to say all that, until Hasan muttered something that sounded like, “The group text sent me here.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“We have a group text. Waiter group text. Jonathan named it the Ladies Who Lunch. I don’t know what that means. It was me and him and Papi and Tess. Then it was just me and him and Papi for a while when you fired Tess. Now it’s back to me and him and Papi and Tess and also Lola’s there now. And we talk about shit to do with the restaurant.”

Tan felt nauseous for the hundredth time that day. “What did they say about today?”

“It was really quiet the whole day, then Jonathan wrote and said someone should check on you.”

“... Jonathan said that?”

“Yeah, and also I did think I should try to go home before I came here but I couldn't remember the cross section of my house... in Queens we have all these weird repeating roads and titles it and it was like... do I live on 29th road... or 29th avenue... or 29th street... or 29th road...”

“You said that one, dear.”

“There's two I think. And 29th... lane. I don't remember exactly where I live. But I'm happy I read the text and came here.”

Tan felt the sudden urge to run and grab his own phone. To text Jonathan and say _I made a huge mistake._ And then send the same text to Brad. And Karamo. And Antoni. But that seemed like so much work, and he was suddenly so tired.

Tan wondered if there was something to that vacation idea Priya had.

He heard snoring and looked down. Hasan was asleep, uncurling his legs on the couch.

Tan got up to get his extra sheet set and guest towel. _Why are these things getting so much action lately? Why does everyone keep coming to me with their problems?_ But much as he tried to induce irritation, one of his more comfortable emotions, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t feel annoyed in that moment. Just when Tan started to wonder if he had finally figured out what it meant to be patient, he heard the snoring stop, then turn into a hurl, and a splash, right on his nice polished wood floor, and realized he would never quite know.

But he let Hasan stay the night anyway.

(After he mopped the floor.)


	9. Acid

" _Acid balances flavor. Anything that tastes sour is a source of acid, yet on its own, acid isn't particularly gratifying. It's the way acid contrasts with other tastes that heightens our pleasure in foods. Salt, fat, sugar, bitterness and starch all invariably benefit from the welcome contract acid provides_."

\- Samin Nosrat, “Salt Fat Acid Heat”

* * *

The past four days since Brad walked out and Jonathan was fired had been stressful, but manageable, because there was nothing Tan could not manage by himself.

Priya seemed surprisingly content to work in the kitchen with Claire, and this left Tan to work in the office, dealing with things like reconciling bills, scheduling employees, filling out orders, and pretending that Antoni wasn’t being a massive help. He jumped in from role to role, filling up waters in the dining room, seating new customers, and coming in early to help with food prep. Most importantly, he did this as quietly as possible. On the rare occasion he made eye contact with Tan, Tan felt he had to look away. He didn’t know why, and didn't waste time trying to figure it out.

Even with Antoni’s help, Tan usually still needed to step out and check in on things from time to time. Everyone seemed very busy and tense, quietly acquiescing to whatever Tan asked them to do. And when he would go back to his office with a plate of food he would either eat too quickly or just poke at, he heard the volume level of the kitchen staff and the waiters rise again. One night, it occurred to him as he stared at an Excel doc, that the staff was only tense when he came out of the office. He already knew this in the back of his mind, but something about the realization hurt his feelings, and he poured a six P.M. cup of coffee to refocus on his work.

When he refocused on his work that fourth night, he realized there was an open waiter slot in both the lunch and dinner shifts for the next day, and there was no one readily available to cover it. He knew Hasan had backed off shifts in preparation for his new job (and for a near future in which he was gone), but Tan texted him first, asking him to cover the lunch shift, and then texted Priya, telling her she would have to shift from the kitchen to the floor for the evening. He made a mental note to tell Antoni he would have to stay put in the kitchen that night. Hasan texted him right away: _No problem._ Tan didn’t get a note back from Priya, but got distracted and forgot to follow up on it. Eventually, when dinner service was done, he loaded the dishwasher by himself, and went upstairs to his apartment, where he drank red wine until he fell asleep.

On the fifth morning missing Jonathan and Brad, Tan ignored a slight hangover and put himself in a cute cropped-khaki, black-button-down combo, and made a beeline for his office, where he didn't get much done in the morning except deleting some probably important emails. He also had to sift through a series of spam emails that made him want to punch a hole through desktop. What had Priya been paid for all this time if she couldn’t keep a decent spam filter up? He took a slight and bizarre fascination in seeing the industry spam emails were getting weirder and weirder—“ _We’re not so different, you and I_ ” read the subject line of one from a t.d.cohen@kiwicookingco.nz. Just as Tan was trying to figure out if there was a way to do something more than delete an email (super-delete? Double-triple-delete?), someone knocked at his door like a hummingbird. “God, what?” Tan responded.

Claire came in, looking even paler than usual, her skin tone the color of idiyappam. “Do you know when Priya’s coming?”

“Is she not out there?”

“No, we talked about doing prep for lunch service together, but she’s not here.”

“You go get started. I’ll contact her.” By _contact_ Tan of course meant _berate,_ but he tried to remain calm as he sent her a text and then kept going through emails. No reason to waste that energy on something that would really function better as an in-person lecture.

Ten minutes later, she hadn’t responded, and didn’t respond to a call either. Tan fielded a call from the wine store that he usually bought from, and only half paid attention to it, but when the guy mentioned a higher price than usual on the sauvignon blanc, Tan heard himself call the guy an ignorant, cheap piece of shit, and the guy hung up on him. Now ready for a rampage, Tan called Priya back, and was sent straight to voicemail. He threw his cell phone against the wall, hearing the plaster crack and the phone shatter as it hit the ground. Not feeling remorse, but not wanting to cost any more property damage, Tan stormed into the kitchen. Cutting vegetables for at least an hour would satisfy his anger.

It turned out to be cutting vegetables, then goat, then chicken, for about three hours total. Just as his hands were cramping and his eyes were crossing, Antoni came in to the kitchen. “Tan?”

Tan looked up. Seeing Antoni’s face after multiple pounds of chicken was like seeing sunlight up close. It took him a second to stutter out, “Yes, what is it?”

“Are we ready to open for lunch service?”

“I guess. Claire?”

She didn’t look up from the biryani she tossed with too much care. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Before Tan could make a snappy comment, Antoni hurried out the kitchen door, nearly smacking into Hasan. Hasan said, “Whoa, buddy! Way to be a white guy and not even see me standing right in front of you!”

Tan could tell just from the quick blurry glimpse he caught of the back of Antoni’s neck that he must have blushed a deep beet color before leaving. Hasan walked up to Tan, laughing at his own comment. Tan wanted to laugh, but something prevented him from doing so. He just reached out fixed the collar on Hasan’s shirt. “Why do you torture him like that? Has he said something offensive to you?”

“Nah, he’s fine. I just can’t resist. He’s so nice and presumptuous I feel like I have to do something about it. If he were one or the other, I'd let it go. Anyway, do you want me to cover dinner tonight too?”

Tan paused, his hands midway through straightening a crease in Hasan’s apron. “You said last week you can’t do doubles anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind. Might be good to get some money saved up for new work clothes.”

“When do you leave for good again?”

“You know, I forget, but uh, I probably wanted to push it back anyway. So don’t worry about it for now. I’ll give my notice again some other time.” He started to walk away, but Tan held on to the apron tightly.

“You’re rescinding your notice? Why?”

“Listen, I just, lots of people work two jobs or more in New York. Those are the people making bank, right?”

“No. Tell me the truth.”

“There just seems to be a lot going on here and I want to help out.”

“That’s ridiculous. When you have to leave, you have to leave. And don’t bother coming tonight, I’ll figure out where the hell Priya is and—”

“Priya’s not here? Oh, bro.” Hasan gently but firmly took his apron out of Tan’s hands. “I’m doing the double today. And I can do lunch every day this week.”

“What about your new job?”

“I’ll just be tired. Follow in your footsteps.” And with that, he was out the door.

Tan moved to the door to follow him and insist that his orders were obeyed, but Hasan came right back to the kitchen door within a few seconds, holding the swinging door silent between his long fingers. “Hey, you know that guy who reviewed the place a couple weeks ago?”

“Bobby Berk?”

“Yeah, I think he’s here.”

Tan peeked around Hasan’s lanky body to squint into the dining room. Sure enough, there was Bobby, looking very casual yet stylish with his windswept hair and stubble. He was wearing cropped black pants that matched his polka dot button down way too well-- an off-white background, a black pattern, a total opposite to what Tan was wearing. Bobby was with an equally handsome Asian man whose hand he held as they perused the menu.

Tan’s heart beat so hard he couldn’t hear whatever Hasan was saying to him. He thrust the boy out into the dining room, muttering something about doing whatever Bobby Berk wanted. Before retreating back into the kitchen, Tan glanced over at Karamo’s corner. But Karamo wasn’t there. Tan swore a blue streak inside his head, but went back to the kitchen with wide eyes and no audible words. He would have to do this without Karamo’s encouragement. _No problem. Right?_ He had done hard things before without Karamo. Or Antoni, for that matter. Or anyone really. The only reason for his shaky hands had to be lack of food.

He walked over to what Claire was making and stuffed a pakora into his mouth. She gasped. “Tan, those are so hot.”

He ignored her and choked it down. He walked back over to his side of the kitchen and stared, unblinking, at the door. When it opened, he met Hasan halfway and snatched the ticket out of his hand. “Jeez, dude,” was all he said before leaving again. Good, because if he said anything else, Tan wouldn’t have been able to respond. He was struck dumb by this order. _SEVEN different things? Four entrees, three appetizers? He's planning to do another review._ Tan thought Bobby said he was going to wait until breakfast was up and running properly before he reviewed again. He lied. A sneak attack. When Tan was down a chef.

No matter. He put his head down and focused. This was what he ran the business for. This was what his parents trusted him to run the business for.

Nothing could break his concentration. He barked orders at Claire, and she quietly ran around doing whatever he said, popping this and that in the oven or the deep fryer, throwing seasoning on whatever still needed it.

For the next twenty minutes, Tan ignored everything that wasn’t food. He ignored a burning pain in the back of his throat as he added chili pepper to the gujarati. He ignored the second and third tickets Hasan put in as he took the khichdi off the heat. He ignored Hasan asking if he wanted to get Tan a sweat rag or a glass of water or something as he poked at the aloo gobi to check for the right amount of crispness. He ignored Antoni coming in to ask if he needed help as he poured raita over the dahi bhalla. He ignored the depressing way Antoni’s chin fell to his chest when he realized he had been ignored as Tan wiped up the slight drip from pouring lentil soup. Tan ignored a weak feeling in his legs as he made the saag paneer into an appealing swirl of dark green in a pristine white bowl. He ignored a wave of ripping pain in his stomach as he placed the samosas in a perfect triangle on the plate.

He hit the little clicker and called “Pick up!”

Claire was out of breath. She reached for the new tickets, which she had wisely not advised Tan against ignoring. Tan heard a blurry memory in the back of his head-- Antoni recommending Claire, saying something about her ability to pick things up quickly. It was very blurry, just like every other thought in Tan's head. He shook his head around in time to hear her say: “That was really fast, but all of that looks amazing, Tan.”

Hasan picked up the order, expertly balancing everything except the soup and samosas. “Damn, this looks so good it makes me hungry, even though I see and eat this stuff every day.”

As soon as Hasan walked out, Antoni came in and stabbed a fourth ticket. He picked up the two remaining plates, eyes to the floor. He said nothing about the food. His silence was compounded by Tan’s growling stomach. Tan reached for the ticket that Antoni had just left, and something was off about his depth perception—his finger caught on the pointy part of the spindle. It hadn't done that in years.

He knew he was bleeding before he even saw it. Tan buried his hand in his apron, then cleared his throat and said to Claire, “I don’t want us to get behind, but I just need to, um, just, the bathroom.” He didn’t know why his words were failing him, or why he went to the office instead of the bathroom. His body seemed to move without his permission.

When he got into the office, he aimed for the couch, but felt like if he lay down, he might not get back up, so he knelt on the floor. Before he even registered nausea, he reached for the trash can and threw up. When he was done, it looked like someone had just spilled black coffee in the can, and when he went to put it down, his hands were shaking so violently it almost tipped.

Even someone as stubborn as Tan knew he needed help. But who could help? Karamo, maybe? Even though he wasn’t there? He reached for his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. He pleaded with his brain to tell him where his phone was, or think of someone else he could call for. Hasan? No, he had helped enough. Too much. Claire? No, the kitchen would get too far behind. Who else was on staff that day? He couldn’t even remember.

He looked around the room. Maybe something in here could help. He saw a bottle of Pepto on the desk. He reached for it, but couldn’t get a good grip, and it fell a few feet away from him. He crawled toward it and saw his phone in the corner. Yes! He could text Karamo and get him to come over! He crawled toward his phone instead.

It was taking a remarkably long time. Long enough for him to think—

could his mother help him? Maybe even his father? But then he remembered, no, they were dead.

When he grabbed his phone, collapsing toward it, its screen was cracked and black. Tan saw the screen and felt suddenly like he was looking in a mirror. He also felt cracked and black. The last thing he remembered thinking was that it was actually good he couldn’t see a real mirror in that moment, because he imagined he looked awful, sweaty and pale, and who knows what happened to his hair. Despite how awful he knew he looked, as he curled up into a ball, just before he blacked out,

he called Antoni’s name.


	10. Oyster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Addressing the usage of characters from the current Bon Appetit controversy, if anyone wondered or cared:
> 
> The characters Priya, Brad, and Claire are all fictionalized versions of real people from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen video series. I adore and admire all three of those people, and took immense joy from the video series, so I thought this would be a fun, very light dip in that fandom. Since then, Bon Appetit and Conde Nast, specifically the BATK, have proved that they have a real problem with institutionalized racism and no clear efforts to fix it. I stand by Priya and her decision to leave the company. I will finish out this series using these characters, perhaps more minimally than I planned, but just know I meant no disrespect by using them and by not saying anything until now.
> 
> In regular chapter note news, please gaze upon my complete lack of awareness of how both hospitals and internet journalism work

“ _My uncle Peter was the one to first teach me about oysters. I love the way eating oysters is like consuming cold liquid metal, the way I imagine the TI-83 robot from The Terminator would have tasted, but saltier. Peter took a netted bag of lumpy brown rocks, and showed me how to perform the alchemy to unlock their secrets._

_Patiently, he showed me how to hold my oyster in the nest of a dish towel, and pry the butt of the oyster with the tip of my knife. When it reluctantly opens, your triumph is carefully tempered by the effort not to spill the precious oyster brine._

_It takes too much muscle for me to have been much good at it when I was younger. But now, I can almost match Peter in his skill and precision. (And I’ve got the scars to prove my years of practice.)_ ”

\- Lucy Knisley, _Relish_

* * *

Antoni wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Not for the next ten minutes, not for the next week, not for the next few months, not for the next rest of his life.

He came too early for visiting hours in the hospital, but he didn’t mind sitting in the lobby to wait—where else would he go? What else would he do? The ambulance had arrived to the restaurant shortly after he dispatched the waiters to escort the remaining patrons out with doggy bags and free desserts, and he remembers Tan rising from the depths of pain and unconsciousness to grab Antoni’s sleeve and hiss out through gritted teeth, “Don’t you dare skip dinner service.”

So he had an exhausting night of running the restaurant (well, co-running, after a tearful plea to Priya on the phone convinced her to reappear), comforting the staff (okay, maybe Antoni was the one who cried during that meeting), and taking care of Tan’s apartment for him (read: washing the lone coffee mug in the sink, then laying on the couch to stare at the ceiling until it was daylight again).

His phone buzzed. It was a call from Ben. His stomach turned. How could he be expected to talk about an investment team for rebuilding his own restaurant when there was another one falling apart before his eyes? Without Tan, there was no Safdi’s, and without Safdi’s, maybe there was also no Tan. Antoni couldn’t think about things like convincing a bunch of food-focused Instagram influencers to give him money neither he nor they deserved when he didn’t know what was happening with Tan. What was wrong with him? Was it exhaustion, or was it something far worse? Either way, Antoni didn’t want Tan to deal with it alone, but had he earned that trust?

“SIR!” the woman from behind the desk suddenly appeared in front of him. Antoni jumped so hard he almost dropped his still-buzzing phone. “I’ve been calling your name! They’re ready for visitors now.”

There was a far-too-long journey after that, very little of which Antoni would remember again. He filled out some form, got some ID tag, went into some elevator, walked down some hallway, went into a second hallway, went into a third hallway, realized the third hallway was the wrong hallway, asked a nurse whose face he never registered for help, got directions to a fourth hallway, and went up to yet another desk with yet another nurse and just blurted out Tan’s name, as if that meant anything to anyone but him. But somehow it did, and they had Antoni stand and wait for either a few seconds or a few minutes or a few hours, he didn’t know, and then they lead him down the hall. Even though Antoni was walking at the speed of molasses, his heart was racing. He braced himself for the worst—bruises, wires, beeping, tubes, weakness, all things that were the antithesis of Tan.

When he walked in, Tan was upright, skin bright, bashing a button on the side of his bed like it was a video game. He stopped when they walked in. “Ah! So it does work after all!”

“You have a visitor, sweetheart,” the nurse said.

Tan smiled at her. “Ma’am, can you bring me a mirror?”

“That’s what the rush was all about?” She had a squeaky voice and curly blonde hair. Antoni loved her, and assumed that meant that Tan hated her. “You look good for a peptic ulcer patient!”

“Oh no, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I’ll get you some water.”

“And a mirror, PLEASE!” But she was already out the door. Tan fluffed his hair, which was showing just an edge of curl at the top. “You cannot get good help these days. Hello, Antoni dear. How was dinner service?”

“Um… it was fine. How was… the hospital?”

“Oh, it’s fine, as you can see,” Tan had already turned his attention to the TV, pushing buttons at high speed. “It is what it is. What I would give for some moisturizing wipes and some hairspray, or maybe even a HAT at this point. I’m not really a hat person, but when times are hard… did you bring my phone by any chance?”

“Oh, um, no.”

“Would it be a terrible bother to ask you to go get it and bring it to me? I think it’s on the floor of the office. I must have dropped it at some point. Meanwhile, what TIME is it? Shouldn’t you be at Safdi’s anyway, helping with lunch prep? Oh, but before you go, since I don’t have my phone, I need to dictate a couple texts to you, if that’s alright. First will be to Brad, and since you and him are such big buddies in your little farmer’s market yogurt club, maybe you can help me figure out what kind of bonus it would take for him to come back. I know he can’t resist a good bonus, especially if I throw in some free seafood, and—”

“Tan, wait,” Antoni sat on the edge of his bed, and Tan raised an eyebrow at the wrinkles this made in the stiff hospital sheets. “What happened to you?”

“Whatever do you mean? Why do I have so much energy? Well, all these fluids in my arm really do a wonder on the energy levels. I should walk around with this IV in all the time.”

“Or you could just… stay hydrated?”

“This seems easier.”

“Tan, why are you here?! What happened to you yesterday? Why did you pass out?”

“It was just a little stomach problem, dear. You heard the woman. Nothing to get upset about. Oh, and a little cut.” He lifted his bandaged finger and wiggled it around, as if to say _No big deal!_ “The world does not stop for a bellyache and a paper cut, so we need to get back to work.”

Antoni got up and stood a few feet away, sensing that for this next announcement, he should be at least far enough away to dodge the remote if it came hurtling at his head. “We don’t need to work today. Because I closed the restaurant for the next three days.”

“You… what?”

“I gave everyone the next three days off.”

Tan could not formulate a response before the nurse came back in with a cup of ice water and a pocket mirror. “Look what I rustled up for you! Can I get you anything else before I leave you two alone for some quiet time?”

Tan cleared his throat. “A cup of coffee, maybe?”

She actually tilted her head back to laugh. “Oh sweetheart. I’m afraid that’s out of the question for a little while. I’ll go get you some nice tea, though.”

When she left, Tan muttered to Antoni, “I get shivers when I think of what an American would consider ‘nice tea.’”

Antoni politely chuckled. “You’re not going to… murder me for closing the restaurant without your permission?”

“Oh no, I will. I just felt another little wave of the painkillers come over me, so I feel a little drowsy. Very peaceful. But yes, when we’re both back, I think I’m going to fire you.”

“That makes sense.”

“You’re not going to fight me on it?”

“It’s your restaurant, your decisions. And I went against that, knowing you have no qualm against firing people. So, no. I won't fight you. I'll miss the job, though.”

Tan reclined against the bed and thought about that. At some point, Antoni came over and sat back down on the side of the bed. Tan looked at him, as if having to remember Antoni was there again. “I forgot to ask that nurse when I can leave.”

“When do you want to leave?”

“Yesterday.”

“Tan…”

“What?”

“Don’t you think you might just want to stay here and relax for a little while?”

“Why would I do that?”

Antoni didn’t have an answer for that right away. He and Tan both stared up at the _Golden Girls_ rerun on the TV. Antoni realized long ago that he and Tan were very different people. Tan wasn’t comfortable taking orders from anyone or anything, not even his own body. Antoni, on the other hand, couldn’t remember the last time he felt less stressed at a job than when he was just bopping around Safdi’s, filling in the gaps, helping whoever needed him, trying to get Tan’s attention. That was the only downside—he often felt so close to getting Tan’s trust, but then at the last minute, he’d fall short. He tried connecting with Tan over food every step of the way, but maybe he was wrong for thinking that was all there was.

After a couple minutes of watching TV together, Antoni tried something. “You know, back in Montreal, I was trying to be an actor in between jobs waiting tables.”

“You’re a bad waiter.”

“Okay, maybe I was bussing and food running for a while. But I did eventually work my way up waiting… then I was usually the head waiter on shift… then before I knew it, my uncle invited me to be manager at his place, Kochanie, a Polish place that was pretty big, or at least as big as Polish joints got. And then at some point I realized I hadn’t gone to an audition for over a year. I realized I was letting go of my dreams, and yeah, I was pretty good at managing, but it filled me with so much stress… everything to do with giving criticism, or reprimands, or scheduling people against their wishes, or god forbid firing someone… it just got to me after a while.”

Tan had been quiet for a while, and at some point, folded his wrist over his closed eyes. Antoni waited for him to give some indicator he wasn’t asleep. After a moment, he finally said, “Well, yeah,” but didn’t look up at Antoni. “Do you think I enjoy it? Do you think I walk in every day thinking, ‘Boy, I can’t wait to make someone cry’? But when something isn’t working right, I fix it. And if it can't be fixed, I replace it. And if what isn't working right is a person, so be it. What else am I supposed to do?”

The silence hung for a minute. As if Antoni said something out loud, Tan threw his wrist away and sat bolt upright. This was too quick. He cringed and collapsed into a heap on his bed, groaning.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to get the nurse?”

Tan waved this idea away. Eyes still clenched shut, he said, “Don’t you imply what I know you’re thinking. It’s not me. I’m not what’s not working.”

“I didn’t say that, but… hang on. There’s more to my story.”

“Make it quick, please,” Tan opened his eyes and curled up into a ball on the bed.

“One day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. My body knew before I did. I had a massive panic attack in the bathroom and blacked out one night in the middle of dinner rush… during peak tourist season.”

“I would have fired you.”

“I fired myself.”

“I’m not firing myself, Antoni.”

“I didn’t want to either. Then when I went to the hospital, they decided I was suicidal. I needed to stay for three days. And it was probably the least stressed I’ve ever felt. I never would have predicted it—they tell me I’m a danger to myself and need to lie in their beds and be counseled and medicated like you wouldn’t believe, and I was _relieved._ Because I didn’t have that same responsibility; I finally didn't have to make so many decisions for once. I was good at my job. Kochanie was very successful. It wasn’t that I wasn’t working for Kochanie. It was that Kochanie wasn’t working for me.”

Tan uncurled a little bit just to look up at Antoni. “I know what you mean. I really do. But Antoni, it’s just, I… I hate hospitals.”

Antoni was silent, waiting for Tan to say more, praying that he would.

“My father was in a hospital. He was severely ill. But he managed the energy to get angry at me one night for being there with him, instead of at the restaurant. I left to take care of Safdi’s. I got there in the middle of dinner service, which was already a disaster that night, and I couldn’t save it. We refunded as much as we made that night. And while I was there, my father… you know. Passed. With that having been our last conversation—that I fucked up once again. That I was a fuck-up in general. And as he went, I proved him right.” Immediately, out of more reflex than anything else, Antoni started to stutter out a protest, but Tan weakly waved a hand at him. “Don’t bother. I know how many people disagree. Me included. But one person thought that way, and I never got the chance to change his mind. So I swore nothing would ever fail while in my care again.” Tears had been gathering in Tan’s eyes for some time, but hadn’t spilled over yet. In fact, he let out a soft laugh. “Except my own stomach, I guess.” He reached up for the bedside table, as if for his phone, but then retracted his hand. “What day is today?”

Antoni reached for his phone. It was dead. “I… don’t know. I don’t remember either. I didn’t charge my phone enough I guess. I’m sorry, I’m very tired.”

Now Tan laughed harder, a rhythmic cackle echoing in the room as one tear slid down his face. “A fine pair we make. I’m very tired suddenly, too.” He wiped a second tear away. “I was only asking because—well, someone like you is going to think this is silly. But I schedule these little crying sessions, just to get everything out of my system on a timeframe that makes sense to me. I wanted to see how off my schedule this was. How much I fucked it up.” The last couple words were garbled over rough sobs.

Antoni was dying to hug him, and prayed Tan would ask for it at some point. As a start, he reached out and held the wrist less covered with IVs. “I don’t think you fucked up your crying schedule at all. I think you’re right on time.”

Tan laugh-cried at this. “Thank you for not making fun of how weird it is.”

“I think it makes perfect sense.”

“That proves you are too tired to know what makes sense.”

Now Antoni laughed, far louder than he needed to. “I won’t argue with any statement of how tired I am.”

“I think we both need a nap,” Tan said, then uncurled just a little bit more to look at the other side of the bed, where there was the world’s most boring blue plastic chair. “I’m not such a dick that I’ll make you sit on that. You can lie here if you want.”

Antoni resisted the urge to comment on how he wanted that more than anything else in the world in that moment. Tan scooted forward as Antoni came around the other side and slowly got in the bed behind him. Tan straightened out and pushed back a bit into Antoni, so that they were close to spooning. After a minute or so of fidgeting, Tan finally reached up and grabbed Antoni’s arm. “Hug me while we nap, you damn fool.”

Antoni laughed and hugged him from behind. It wasn’t like the last time they shared a bed—now Tan felt cold and fragile. It only made Antoni hug him closer as their breathing evened out together, and say one last little prayer that Tan was physically okay, or at least going to get better. As he fell asleep, he felt secure, knowing that Tan had answered all his other little prayers that day, and that he would probably answer more in the future.

* * *

At some point, the nurse had come in to check on them, then turned out the annoying fluorescent lights on her way out. With the curtains drawn, it was hard to tell what time it was, and somehow harder to sleep in the darkness. Both Antoni and Tan drifted in and out of sleep until their final wake-up call, in the form of Jonathan Van Ness, crouched in front of their bed, whispering, “I really don’t want to interrupt this incredibly cute koala bear moment but visiting hours are almost over.”

When Tan got up and registered who it was, he reached out to hug Jonathan, who almost got knocked off balance. But they both immediately launched into a string of stuttering, interrupted, desperate “I’m sorrys” and related phrases, overlapping each other with their voices going up an octave every few seconds.

Antoni was so content to watch this adorable display that he didn’t even notice Karamo standing behind Jonathan at first. When he did, he saw Karamo was also watching Tan and Jonathan with a face showing only affection, nothing else.

Tan looked up over Jonathan’s shoulder, carefully moving his long hair out of his line of vision to look up at Karamo. “Karamo, I’m so sorry, but you can’t do your talk show in my place for the next three days.”

“I don’t have anyone for two weeks anyway.”

“What? Why not?”

“It’s called vacation. Try it maybe?”

“That’s what I’m doing!”

“A hospital stay is not a vacation,” his tone was stern, but as soon as Jonathan got up, Karamo came over to give Tan a very gentle-looking hug. Antoni was kind of dying for one from Karamo too, but that was no different than usual.

Tan didn’t address what Karamo said when he stood up. Instead he reached out toward the knit poncho Jonathan was wearing. “I don’t usually like ponchos, dear, but I like this.”

“You’re lying to my face but I like that Hospital Tan is trying to turn over a very nice new leaf.”

“I really am sorry. Please come back. I’ll give you back pay. I’ll give you whatever you need. I’ll—oh no, wait, you’re going to beauty school, aren’t you? Didn't you mention that to me a long time ago?”

“Surprise, bitch. Classes are in the day. And they’re not even every day. I can come work at night.”

“That’s not too much?”

“Did you know we as a human race are often capable of doing more than one thing with our lives at a time?”

“You’re fired again,” but he was laughing as he said it, and Jonathan laughed back.

“Can I come join the koala pile?” Tan barely said a yes before Jonathan launched himself toward them and started crawling toward the middle. “I’m like your baby son!”

“If you’re having a son together, can I officiate the marriage?” Karamo came over and leaned his lanky body over the top of the bed.

“Maybe some time to adjust first… like maybe we should work on changing our Facebook relationship status first?” Antoni said, praying once again that Tan wouldn’t correct this.

Tan just said, “I don’t have my phone to do that right now, remember?”

“I have mine,” Jonathan plopped his onto Tan’s chest with a clunk. “Please take care of it now. This will-they-or-won’t-they was very stylish for the first week but I’ve had it.”

Tan tapped away on Jonathan’s phone. “I might also be texting my employees to try to get ahead of what I’m sure will be a rocky return after three full days off.”

Jonathan grappled for his phone. “NO! Tan! No working allowed today!”

“I’m also doing the facebook thing!!”

“You liar! I see you’re checking that damn food review website!”

There was a slight knock on the door frame. “Um, I’ll save you the trouble and say I didn’t post it yet,” Bobby Berk, radiant in a seersucker jumpsuit, peered in from the doorway. His posture was a bit tensed, and it was the first time Antoni remembered ever seeing him look less than completely confident. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, I just wanted to see you before the end of the day.”

Tan swooped a hand over his hair to smooth it down. “Oh no, you’re fine, please, come in, just ignore this hospital gown, it’s really not my color and—”

“Don’t worry about any of that, I heard you were sick and I just wanted to… look, this is really a bit of a violation of my journalistic integrity, but at the same time… I wrote a review of the food I had the other night, but if you weren’t feeling well, I thought I’d check in and see if you might want a do-over?”

“You didn’t like it,” Tan crossed his arms. “Fuck, I really thought I nailed it that time.”

“No, no, listen—that’s the thing. I loved the food. Again. I loved the food both times I went. But the atmosphere, it’s… nothing changed. It got worse, actually. But now that I know you were ill—”

“I don’t think that’s the only problem,” Karamo said. Jonathan cleared his throat with no tact or delicacy.

Tan didn’t say anything for a moment, smoothing over his hair continuously, until Karamo nudged him. “Okay. I see what you mean. While I think the food should be the main point of a restaurant—and I will carry that point to my dying day—I see what you mean when you say we could use a bit of a tune-up in the overall mood. And maybe some new wallpaper too.”

Bobby took a seat in the plastic chair. “The wallpaper’s fine, it’s just… your employees move like they’re walking on eggshells. When I ask for a refill on my drink, they look like I’m about to take them out back and shoot them. That’s what I mean when I say environment. I never set out to make people nervous. I just want everyone in the food industry to feel happy making or serving a good meal. No one in your place seems that way. They should, though, because it IS a good meal.”

Tan sighed. “Give me two weeks. Some things are going to change.” He held Jonathan’s hand as he said this. “I really mean it this time. Oh, but forget about breakfast. I’m not adding that after all. Too much work.”

“We can just put an egg dish on the main menu,” Antoni suggested.

“I love it,” Tan said. “Think of something you want to see on the menu and we'll try it as a special this week.” Bobby also looked happy with this idea. Antoni felt his heart may explode from pure contentment.

The five of them sat in silence for a moment, until Bobby pointed at Jonathan and said, “Hey! You were my waiter from the other day!”

“I remember you and your beach house Instagram and your preppy little getups and your overall cute self!” Jonathan chirped as he sat up and leaned over to reach a hand out to Bobby, which he gladly leaned over and took hold of. "Can we be best friends now?”

“Do you usually know every single person in a room, Jonathan?” Antoni asked from behind the curtain of Jonathan’s hair.

“Yeah, more or less.”

“He’s the glue,” Karamo said. “And a fantastic wingman, I learned at the bar the other night. He set up not one, but TWO of my friends with different beautiful boys for the night.”

“I want to go back to that same bar next time we go out, but I want Tan to go with us,” Jonathan pointed his finger at Tan with as much flair as he could manage. “I want you to start doing more non-work things. This place is really cute, it’s in Midtown West, and--”

Tan groaned like he was in pain, but he didn’t touch his stomach. “A Midtown bar? Can it be ANYTHING else? Can we do yoga or something?”

“Oh duh! I’m so into yoga! Does anyone else want to come?”

“I’m always down to check out a new class,” Bobby said.

“Does this feel weirdly familiar to anyone else?” Antoni said. “Like we’ve been in a room together like this before?”

Jonathan thought about it, coming up with, “No, but it would make a cute show, I think.”


	11. Atmosphere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel terrible about waiting so many months between these updates! Especially since we are really in the home stretch now; only one or two more chaps after this. I acknowledge this one is also just a bit on the short/incomplete feeling side, but I just really wanted to get something posted before I finalize how I want to do the ending.   
> I know Antoni also seems like a minor character in this chapter but he'll be back more in the picture more v soon. Don't worry. I miss him too

_Even as I ate my body weight in food I knew I wouldn’t soon forget (and carried away two jars of pesto to share with my roommates later that evening), something Nosrat said during our earlier conversation stayed with me. Perhaps there was a fifth element, something that enhanced the appreciation cooks and diners have for the first four._

_“There’s so many meals I’ve had where I don’t remember anything about what I ate,” she said then. “I just remember how I felt at the table, who I talked to, what we talked about—that’s what I find to be the best part of eating.”_

\- Samin Nosrat in conversation with Hannah Giorgis at _The Atlantic_

* * *

Tan collected so many notes left for him at the restaurant and in his apartment that felt a little bit like a trash collector, and made a joke to Antoni that he should get one of those little pokers so he wouldn’t have to touch them. Antoni giggled, but quickly said, “That’s mean, Tan.”

He said this because the series of notes really were like a trail of breadcrumbs in a forest, if the trail was meant to lead him to his first ever vacation, and if the breadcrumbs were made of love.

The entire discharge process from the hospital as well as the whole Lyft ride from there to Safdi’s had to be spent by Tan convincing Antoni to let him stop by the restaurant at all. The only way he finally convinced Antoni to let this happen was by Tan promising that even though, yes, he was stopping by to see what kind of disarray it was in, he wouldn’t be pausing to fix any of that disarray. Antoni also couldn’t deny the logic that Tan did live above the damn place, after all.

When Tan reached down to unlock the front door, there was a note left for him, taped to the doorknob:

 _Dear Tan,  
I’ve only known you a month or so and I already know you’re coming here to see what kind of mess the place is in. I didn’t want to let you down so I held a wild party. Sike! I cleaned the entire place myself. Well, me and a couple TaskRabbits. Okay, maybe five of them. Don’t come back down until you’ve vactioned so hard that you lost a quarter of your brain cells.  
xo Lola  
  
_And it truly was so spotless that Tan gasped. Everywhere he walked through was pristine—the floors vacuumed, mopped, so sparkling the tile looked freshly polished; the kitchen free of any of Brad’s mysterious fermentation projects (or at least they were tucked away out of view for once); the wood on the bar had been polished. The only sign of disorder was a box of wine left in the center of that bar. There was a note on it with his name in large cursive on the top. He opened it up.

_Hello  
I picked out a few of my favorite wines for you. They’re almost all whites; I tend to find those sit better with my stomach, especially late at nights. They’re also all from France. If you’re not into France I’ll try something else next time. Just let me know. It’s also just now occurring to me that maybe you shouldn’t be drinking wine at all? I don’t know. I’m sorry. If you need me to come by and get these later and take them back home and out of your hair, I like totally understand. Just let me know.   
See you soon,  
Tess_

Even the office had been carefully rearranged and tidied to reveal no sign of strife. He did catch one note left for him on his computer, taped at the top of the screen, in the exact center:

_Hey Tan,  
All grocery orders are paused. Just give me a couple days’ notice to get them going again when you need. Also, your computer has been updated. Also also, your phone is at the repair shop two doors down, getting a new screen. You’re welcome!  
\- Priya_

This note brought a wave of relief he felt wash over him, but even seeing the now-cleaned trash can made Tan a little nauseous remembering how bad he let things get, and he left the restaurant in a hurry to go upstairs.

On his apartment front door, there was a note from Hasan.

_Tannay,  
You really shouldn’t keep the spare key for this place in such an obvious place (behind the light? Really man. Amateur hour here!) because delinquents like me will find it and let all my coworkers in to drop off gifts you would have rejected if they came while you were actually home. I’m keeping the key until you figure out a better hiding spot. How about your hair? I’m using humor to disguise the fact that I literally got so scared when you went to the hospital that I cried myself to sleep that night. Please don’t leave me alone in this city. And this is coming from a guy who’s done super scary shit like stand up comedy and dating white girls.   
Seriously, don’t leave me.  
Hasan_

When he finished the note, Tan felt a little sob come up from somewhere inside him. Antoni, who had followed closely behind him this whole time, asked in a very soft tone, “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a little tickle,” Tan said, coughing a couple times to cover it up. Antoni mercifully didn’t respond as Tan let them into the apartment.

Tan made a beeline for the kitchen, even as Antoni called after him, “You better not be making coffee!”

“Of course not!” Tan lied. He just then realized Antoni was serious about taking care of him. Oh well. “Just getting water.”

“... Really?”

“Just a glass of water.”

“There’s hope for you yet!”

Tan rolled his eyes but did go ahead and get a glass of water. He still didn’t leave the kitchen. Something was off, something had shifted. He opened the refrigerator.

Normally, his fridge was pretty much empty, except for wine, and a container or two of leftovers from the restaurant. But now the shelves were overflowing with tupperwares of food. And even more bizarre, it looked like it was split down the middle—one half of the fridge was stocked with containers stacked atop each other with the utmost care and planning, like a perfect game of Tetris, the dishes labeled with perfect little capital letters describe what was in them. And everything matched up—a perfectly round ball of ready-to-go bread dough sat atop a quart container of soup, a square plastic cup of rice sat right under a matching-sized lentils. The other side of the fridge looked ready to topple, as if someone ran in and stuffed as much food as possible on that side and ran out. A couple of the containers seemed like there may have been a bit of a spill trying to get the food inside. It looked ready to fall any second, but miraculously didn’t, even as Tan wiggled a couple items around to check. What was labeled was written in a scrawl that would have been an indistinguishable… if Tan hadn’t been reading Brad’s chicken scratch for so long. Tan didn’t have to read the note haphazardly taped to the top of the poorly stacked pile to know it was him, but he did anyway.

_Chief,  
Hey heard you had some tummy troubles! Brought you over just a sampling of some of the stuff I’ve had fermentin away for months. Claire said you’ll need things easy on the ol digestive system but I didn’t want to just bring you a ton of oatmeal and whatever. Probiotics will do you a world of good. You gotta believe me. I recommend the garlic honey first. Garlic’s also got all that allicin, which is the stuff that’s really good for you in garlic—I believe.  
\- Brad_

And on the neat pile, there was a note folded and left on the tip-top.

_Hi Tan,  
I brought you over a few things to eat in case you didn’t feel like cooking for the next week or so. It’s all very mild, I hope you’ll forgive a bit of blandness—I know Brad was on his way over with all sorts of things that are half-alive. Don’t worry about washing any of these containers. I’ll come by in a week or so to pick up both mine and Brad’s. Let’s talk soon.  
\- Claire_

He didn’t know how to react to that, what to do first. Dig in? Reorganize Brad’s side? Plan out the order of meals for the week? Beginning to feel a little overwhelmed, he pocketed the notes and went toward his bedroom. He muttered something to Antoni about lying down, and when Antoni muttered something back about joining him in a few minutes, Tan’s heart fluttered. It was such a distractingly nice feeling that he almost didn’t notice the last note left for him, stuck for him on the bedroom door.

_Back home, I’d write to you,_

רפואה שלמה 

_Basically, it just means “speedy recovery.” But I want you to take your time. I have a little side hustle keeping me afloat. On that same note, give me a call while you’re home—I think I might have something that can help you relax & recover.   
\- Papi_

So yes, Tan had cracked that joke about collecting notes like they were trash. He almost couldn’t hold them all in his hands when he was done. But just before Antoni came in, and they enjoyed one of the most soothing naps together in either of their entire lives, Tan tucked all these notes into the fireproof lockbox under his bed, where he kept things like his passport, a copy of his tax return, and a photo of his mother.

* * *

“Do you know what the most interesting thing is, truly?” Tan asked out loud, aware that he was talking to people in the room, but staring straight up at the ceiling through the faint cloud of smoke surrounding him felt just so right in that moment. He also believed in his heart of hearts that what he was about to say really WAS the MOST interesting thing in the world, TRULY, and he wondered why it was taking them so long to reply.

“What?” Papi asked from where he sat on the floor. Tan couldn’t understand why he insisted on sitting there, when he was such a little guy who they had plenty of room for on the couch. Papi didn’t laugh, but Tan could hear his smile through his Israeli accent when he said, “I like to sit on the floor and just have this whole little space all to myself for once.”

“Oh, sorry, dear, I didn’t realize I asked that out loud.”

Antoni was sitting on the couch next to Tan, staring at him in wide-eyed, red-eyed love, holding a joint in his hand. “Tanny, have you never done this? Ever? Ever ever?”

“Excuse me, drop that tone, love. When was I expected to find the time?”

“Even stoned, he tells me to watch my tone.”

“I told you to _drop_ it not _watch_ it.”

“That’s worse!”

They had gotten into a light shoving match over this. Tan noticed Papi watching them with a serene smile on his face, until he responded to a series of buzzes from his very cracked, very dented phone. Tan cleared his throat as Antoni relit the joint he held. “Papi, love, how much will all this marijuana cost?”

Then Antoni laughed so hard at the usage of the full word “marijuana” that he started coughing. Papi kept trying to speak, but it was hard to hear over the coughing, and Tan pushed Antoni up off the couch. When he excused himself to the kitchen, Papi finally said, “Nothing. It was just meant to be a get-well present.”

“Child, to be frank, I didn’t just mean for tonight. I meant in general. What’s the price tag to get you to stop doing this?”

“I don’t understand…” but his eyes were more worried than confused, especially as Tan reached toward the coffee table and grabbed his checkbook.

“Oh no, I know you know what I mean. What does this extra income go to, exactly? Classes? Citizenship paperwork? Rent? How much is two months’ rent for you? I’ll give you two months rent and while you’re not paying that, you can figure out something safer to do.” He started writing out a check. “If you won’t tell me how much your rent is, I’ll just have to estimate—”

“No, Tan, no,” He stood up, not much taller than Tan even as Tan remained seated. “You just came out of the hospital. That had to cost money.”

“I’ve had some money put away for a long time dear. I think I thought maybe I’d go back to school one day? But the time has come and gone. It needs to go to good use. This is good use; it keeps you out of trouble.”

“I, no, listen, I am not in trouble,” He sat down next to Tan on the couch. “Here in America, this is not what I consider trouble. It’s not always easy, but I’m not in trouble. I know this isn’t the best path, but for now it works, and… just, save your money, that’s all.”

Tan stared at him for a moment. So young, and yet he looked so tired, truly exhausted with his perma-bedhead. The weed didn’t help. Briefly Tan wondered if Papi ever showed up to work high like Jonathan. Maybe if he treated them a little nicer, and if the restaurant wasn’t perpetually understaffed, they wouldn’t need it. “Love, let me tell you something I’ve figured out in this whole hospital mess. Sometimes it really pays to just ask for a little help when you need it. OR even if you don’t ask, and someone just wants to help, maybe let them. Maybe it’ll work out better than you think.” He handed him a check.

Papi didn’t take it. His phone buzzed again. “I won’t accept your money. But. There’s another way you could help us.”

“Who’s us?”

“You know my friend who had to move here?”

“Oh. Right. Love, I’m sorry I forgot about that. I’ll figure out some sort of busboy work he can do. We’ll get him started this week, somehow, some way. I promise. I’ll figure out a position. I’ll make one up.”

“You don’t have to do that!” Finally, he showed a spark of energy, popping up like a piece of popcorn and going to Tan’s door.

“Speak of the devil,” Tan said as that man he met in his restaurant, just a few weeks ago (though it felt like years), appeared in the living room with a case of some kind in his hand, all smiles and teeth and clear tan skin. “Haled, was it? You really are very handsome, my friend. Maybe we could pay you to stand outside and get people to come in.”

There was a flash of something like worry again on Papi’s face—jealousy maybe?—but then his smile returned and he said, “I was reading the review from Bobby Berk about Safdi’s—”

“Please never bring that up again as long as we live—”

“I know, but real quick, he said you needed atmosphere.”

“He _also_ said the food was good. Mind your tone.”

“Well, I was thinking maybe this would help the atmosphere issue,” Papi ran back over to sit next to Tan again.

“What’s in that—” but Papi held up a hand to indicate Tan to be quiet. Before his high brain could come up with the perfect way to eviscerate him for doing that, Haled opened his case and took out a trumpet, with a fair bit of tarnish and a couple dents. Tan tried not to let the poor state of the instrument distract him, but he didn’t need to try too hard, because then the music started.

And even for someone who openly disliked jazz, Tan had to admit, it was transporting.

He couldn’t even be sure if it was the music itself, or the sheer absurdity of the fact that a tall handsome Egyptian man in a secondhand leather jacket just walked into his apartment and started playing a trumpet at him. To make sure it wasn’t some sort of drug-addled hallucination, Tan turned to Papi for reassurance that it was indeed happening. He felt this reassurance strongly as he saw the goofy smile on the young guy’s face. Suddenly, so much about the whole situation made sense. Of course his employees—or at least Papi—would be happier with this guy around. It was a no-brainer. And if it wasn’t so hard to make them happier, there was no reason not to.

Tan took Papi’s hand and put the folded check into it, and didn’t let go until Papi’s hand closed around it.


End file.
